Some Experience Necessary
by plink
Summary: Pre!CC Young!Raven - Raven is asked to train some new  female  recruits with a mission to find an organoid, but naturally it doesn't go as planned because everyone wants in...SERIOUS LANGUAGE WARNING IN SOME PARTS. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

_This story began as a conversation many, many moons ago and has been sitting half finished on my HD up until now because I would get a fit of the giggles every time I tried to work with the plot. It shouldn't be taken seriously, and is not meant to insult anyone...but it does look at the ideas that crop up a lot to do with Raven and his life. Another pre-CC fic, but pieces were taken from the _Distant Stars_ episode._

_Due it to it being one big text file, some chapters will be quite short, some will be quite long. Just so you know!_

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.1**

The day was going to be warmer than it should have been and his uniform was sticking to him most unpleasantly as the teacher droned on about the logistics of supply and demand. The chalk squeaked and hissed over the vaguely green surface of the chalkboard as the dried up and bony Mr. Suthers continued to explain the subject of business to his restless students a military school it may have been, there was still the importance of work outside their regiments and the choice once the four-year conscription was up to stay or go elsewhere.

Raven tapped his pencil against his notebook, deeply bored and feeling more morose than usual at the beautiful day. It was only the first class of the morning, and already he was looking for other things to do, to think about rather than dwell on the subject at hand. All he could do was gaze outside the great windows that overlooked the parade square and the squat buildings that the school had put up as a temporary measure for the new students and had ended ups staying instead. Ungainly boxes on steel legs, they were at least cool in the depths of an Imperial Summer, but not as picturesque as he would have liked. There was _some _greenery, which at least broke up the harsh lines and general dismay baked into the school with its generations of school kids.

Raven narrowed his eyes, remembering for a moment the fond memories of the first learning classes covering everything you could possibly need before this brain-meltingly-boring subject was thrust upon him. The basics of all schooling, math, English, science, hell even art was preferable to learning about business. In the brick hothouse that had been one of the first buildings erected here and thus without much in the way of temperature control, like say, air conditioning - or a working proper window - and business was hard enough without having your brain cooked from outside sources as well.

Besides, he already knew how it worked, mostly by reading over his foster father's shoulder, asking annoying questions and just being generally amused by the flailing and cursing that followed.

Lilac eyes slid in their sockets to take in the clock above the door, each tick taking a lifetime as the dust motes drifted from the old ceiling to the wooden floor in oceans of sunbeams to be lost in the shadows of his fellow cadets. Another dreaded half hour. Then down to the shooting range. Ms Bellington was one of his favourite teachers, and shed promised she would bring in a working flame thrower for the students to see a demonstration of something Raven was _itching_ to take a look at. If he was lucky and she put a good word in, he might have it added to his arsenal for Christmas!

Why did time have to slow down when you needed to escape?

Leaning his elbows onto the desk and his chin in a vacant palm, he amused himself by watching the tree that was outside the wall of windows, casting a shadow over the board. It was a pretty thing, stirred only by the winged inhabitants who were currently teasing rather ruffled and annoyed magpie. They were vicious little things...

But his meditations were destroyed when the classroom door was thrown open, sounding out a torturous shriek from the old hinges and a hefty smack when it hit the exposed brick. Raven could have taken this moment to scowl, fix the newcomer with a glare or something, but he'd been lulled into a false sense of security by the warmth and the dullness of the day so he did what everyone else did at that moment he jumped. And hit his elbow in exactly the wrong place to make him cringe and rub it furiously and _now_ scowl at the person standing there.

His was the school secretary, Errol Flick, and he was about to ruin Ravens day.

**- To be continued!**

_It is a guilty pleasure to write him as a school boy.  
_


	2. Chapter 2

_I got back from work. I should continue posting...forgot to mention, Raven does not have Shadow just yet. Shadow just might be his reward..._

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.2**

"Understand that this will be filed under _extra curriculum activities_…something of which you are in _great_ need of." The sniveling tones washed over Raven as he did his best to keep up with the tall man's amazing pace as they made their way out of the classroom building and into the school grounds. Flick was the aide to the principal and was more of a secretary than an officer, harshly washed and skinny as a rake. One of those rule-botherers. "Of course I can safely say that your marks are _incredibly_ high…mmm, we can expect _nothing less_ from the son of the defense minister, but all the same, your skipping of classes and ignoring of the team rosters-"

Raven rolled his eyes, shifting his shoulders as he did so to reposition his backpack. His jacket was _stifling_ and Flick didn't look like he was stopping any time soon. Skipping class? No, he had notes for those. Only the top ten percent of the school skipped classes and that was usually for good reason – their families were either high up or in the field. No noble's child would be caught dead _genuinely_ skipping school for hi-jinks due to the beating they'd probably earn when they got home. 'Skipping' was often down to legitimate missions. What had he been caught out on this time? Prozen was meticulous with his file keeping on everything except his own personal details – Raven drummed his fingers against the coarse backpack strap, thinking. The Barthas Conflict? There'd been the incident on the border two weeks ago that took a while to resolve…possibly St Martin's Place? That had been a sticky situation-

"…All this gallivanting about, you need to put more effort into outside school activities apart from the gun club and the…" Flick consulted his notes. "Home economics class?"

"A good soldier knows how to take care of himself." Raven replied, not bothering to tack on anything sarcastic – it was a waste of energy in this heat.

"Hmm. Where were you three days ago?"

Raven jerked with surprise, confused. "It was a weekend, sir. I didn't think we needed to sign in for those."

Flick's pencil-thin moustache almost curled as his cheeks pinked in carefully held fury. "You _missed_ _camp_!"

Raven stopped, frowning in annoyance. Bugger the heat. "And play in the dirt with the other kids who don't even know how to put up a _tent_? Their idea of outside survival is making out where the teachers _can't see_."

"I'll have you know, _Mister_ Prozen" – never had a name been spoken with such venom – "It is _highly _important to bond with your peers and there is nothing wrong with taking on a leadership role and helping out those beneath you!" Flick wasn't bothering keeping his voice down. A few heads were poking out of windows above them as they made their way across the parade ground. Only the band attempting a basic march was not paying attention - but then that could be something to do with the tuba player. "Do you have anything to say to this?!"

"I don't have to explain myself to you." Came the growl back.

Flick stopped, spun around on his heel and put his hands on his hips in a haughty pose, his clipboard quivering in his spider-leg fingers. "This time, oh this time, you _do_."

Raven stared him down. His fingers itched, but the ways of war were not appropriate in school. This was a public servant and while he was drunk on his own delusions of power, he was still part of the government system. It didn't mean he had to be listened to, but he couldn't be beaten either. What was it Prozen always suggested? Oh yes.

"National security remains national security." Raven said smoothly, trying to keep anything smug out of his voice. The look on Flick's face was ridiculous. "The camp was never said to be compulsory, so I didn't see why I had to go. Minister Prozen needed someone to come with him for – as I said a moment ago – a project of national security." He said the words lovingly, revelling in what he was seeing in front of him. Flick went purple. It was an attractive shade too, but possibly not on the trembling secretary.

When the man finally gained control of himself – with a few polite coughs – he leaned forward and fixed Raven with a pair of watery hazel eyes, filled with office-brand evil. "Without a certain amount of points to your name, you will not be able to graduate." Raven raised an eyebrow in question, so Flick continued. "The school requires people to do things properly, and what you have alone will not cut it. So. You'd best make up points fast because the end of the school year is nigh. Summer vacation, the delights of Christmas, the New Year…and you, having to face this year all. Over. Again. How does _that _sound?"

"Minister Prozen won't stand for it."

"Minister Prozen is part of the military _and_ the government and knows damn well he can't break the rules. No amount of bribery either – favours or cash - will let you pass. No permanent pilot's licence. The turning in of your weapons cache, which I have heard has been getting rather large. Having to, haha, work with the younger set. Am I making myself clear?"

Raven grit his teeth behind firmly closed lips, carefully controlling his temper before replying. It would do no good to lash out now no matter how gleeful the damned bastard was. "Completely clear, Mr. Flick."

The man straightened with a triumphant and somewhat sly grin. "Good! So now you're thinking, what do I have to do to get out of this?" Silence. Flick decided to carry on, his tone still quite bright. "The task is very simple. We have a lot of prospective new students, and they must be tested to gain entry to our little school and further training. I recall that you had to go through that same test?"

Raven nodded, but paid it no heed. That particular memory of his childhood was not one he liked to dwell on too much. The test itself had been fine, it was the leading up to it which had been painful. "You're asking me to…be the _tester_?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself." With a dismissive wave of his hand, Flick turned suddenly and began to walk again towards the low-slung bunkers that served as the main office buildings, complete with an old gunner station still attached to the top. It was a quirky thing, covered in mismatched paint and crude graffiti of political statements, very anatomically incorrect penises and love confessions, all of which the janitors had long since given up on with removing. Despite all of this it still held some grandeur, its design pure old Imperial and a reminder that some things were constant in this strange world. Raven watched it for a moment before following, head down and face grim. This would not be good.

"Four unique young ladies have under the watchful eyes of Emperor Zeppelin II."

Raven's jaw dropped and his words came out without thought. "Oh really? He can still get it up?"

"Hold your tongue against his highness! Honestly, you're disgusting!"

"And realistic." Raven recovered. "Four girls." A suspicious pause. "_Why_ girls?"

"Why not?"

"Why _just_ girls? Aren't there any guys? And why did they volunteer? The school is open for education on it's own, but this is a military thing or you wouldn't have asked me to come over here."

"What makes you think they volunteered?!" Flick spluttered.

Raven scratched his chin, lost in thought for a moment as one of the rare cool breezes of the day made the trees rustle around them. Perhaps it was a little ominous, but he did feel a prickle of warning down his back. "If they were conscripted they'd be part of class and would be treated accordingly. They'd either be of noble blood – which means they'd be part of a specific unit, or…their families would be selling them to the only 'safe' profession in order to save the farm…and earn some more cash in the mean time. But they're not in class, so I don't get it."

Flick waved him aside. "It doesn't matter. Get inside. **Now**."

"It does." Raven folded his arms, narrowing his pale eyes. "Volunteers fall into two categories – murderous or insane. Possibly both at the same time if they don't have a…" A democratic pause that would have made Prozen proud. "…if they're missing something between their legs. Do you _know_ why we have such a high ratio of men to women in the military?"

"I don't know and I don't _care_. Get. inside."

_- To be continued_


	3. Chapter 3

_I repeat that the following characters are parodies of the hundreds of fics here originally written when the series first came out and are not to be taken seriously. I also want to say QUARANTINE, DAMN IT QUARANTINE. Eventually these chapters will have names. Maybe. _

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.3**

The air conditioning behind those dark doors took the youth's breath away, made that chill a little worse. It was easier to go along with Flick then to fight him – who knows, maybe he'd find his own variant of Hardin. No hang on, that was a horrible thought. Raven grimaced, momentarily swayed by the thought of the pink haired lioness stalking her prey…it was hardly surprising why Lord Prozen rarely had anyone else on his staff…

He balled his fists and tried to compose himself as Flick moved softly across the thick carpeting and turned a corner by the main admin desk to head into the long corridor where most, if not all, teachers found a moment of solace from the threat of students. Raven actually stopped for a moment, caught in protocol.

It was an easy thing to say that Raven held most of the military in contempt, but that wasn't true. He held idiots and time-wasters in contempt – and that was most of the people he knew who followed the flag and the royal dick-face who was causing most of the trouble to begin with. Common sense wasn't a prerequisite of staff for some reason, and having to bail out his fellow students…and watch the fallout from those that were actually _serving in the field_ left little of his humanity intact.

Ah well. How did the old saying go? _Papa told me there'd be days like these…_Ha. Mix with mediocrity and see what happened…crap. Always crap…

Straightening his jacket and trying to compose his mind as best he could, he waited for Flick to reappear. Apart from the click of typewriters and the rumble of the administration's kettle getting ready to boil, it was eerily quiet. The bunker really did quieten the noise outside, although – he peeked at the old clock on the wall – it wasn't quite break-time yet. Even so, you should've been able to hear the gun range, surely…?

Time stretched on, and Flick still didn't reappear. An itch was at the small of his back, and Raven decided it was time to sit down as opposed to remaining in the standard military 'at rest' position. Great for show, but the staff behind the desk didn't seem to care.

Across from Raven lay the school's achievements, stuffed in an old battered wooden showcase with a glass front. Oppressing, actually. Another sly glance at the staff and Raven realised he wasn't being watched, so he leaned forward to peer closer, pondering if there were any familiar names.

Shubaltz featured heavily. He chuckled evilly. Not one Prozen. Although that made a lot of sense.

"_Mr. Raven Prozen_!" The shout made him jump. Flick was peering around the corner, brows furrowed and eyes glittering with feral malice. "Come _along_ please!"

Raven stared at him. "You went all that way without _knowing_-?"

"Ju-shut up, you impudent little br-_boy_." Flick corrected himself quickly. Behind the desk one of the secretaries shot him a dark look and huffed into her report. "I haven't got all day, and you are certainly eating away at your chances of getting out of this little mess like I don't know what!"

The youth did his best not to stare at the frustrated man, as Flick had managed to achieve the next stage of purple – he put Raven in mind of something about to explode. Flick exploded on various occasions because of his short fuse, but most of the time he could be ignored. This time however, well. Raven wasn't going to risk it.

Saying nothing else, Raven followed him down the hall to the room at the very end, larger and full of tables that he suspected were normally used for staff meetings. The whiteboards were still covered with various bits of half information, hurriedly wiped out as people were ushered from one place to the next – none of it made sense, but then it wasn't supposed to. It was the secret language of teachers, taught to them as they embarked on their horrific journey to teach the young and irresponsible.

Seated – and in some cases lounging in this room were a selection of people that Raven had never seen before. He automatically drew himself up, hands behind his back and feet slightly apart to show he was serious, and waited for Flick to finish his slimy apologies to the adults that were there. Three, from the looks of things. One from the school board by the look of that jacket with the patched elbows, one from the military (not someone he knew, so possibly either paperwork or retired judging by the strained jacket) and a woman with messy steel grey hair pulled back into a bun. She looked like a teacher too, but she looked too bright-eyed and alert to work there.

They were all seated and looking in control. Around them were four girls, who made up the lounging portion of the room, all staring at him. Painfully young, was Raven's first thought. Very much up the emperor's alley was the second…

It was the woman that spoke first. Quiet, school-masterly tones, better suited for those first coming into school. "Good morning. I presume that this is the young man we've been told about?"

"Yes, yes." Flick muttered dismissively. "For God's sake, boy, stop looking like you're going to kill someone."

Raven couldn't help it – he shot Flick a filthy look, getting a giggle from one of the sitting girls.

"We have heard you are amongst the best in your class when it comes to mission work and carrying out specific orders." The woman spoke, meeting Raven's curious gaze. "I would like you to lead my four charges here into their first battle, to watch over them and record their progress."

"Why?" It slipped out.

The man in the patchy jacket scratched at his rather messy beard. "Because they're _highly talented_ and have _just_ come into our care, thus needing the _best_ training we can give. Rosalita." He indicated to the girl leaning up against the wall with fiery red hair and a sneer. "…lost her family to a bandit attack or possibly a band of militants and joined the military to get…" He consulted his notes. "Revenge."

Raven gawked.

"To her left is Harmony." The silvery blond girl was attempting to scowl but came across as being constipated. She was just as thin as Rosalita, but not with her prepubescent curves. "…She just sort of…turned up. We have no idea where she came from except for a tube. From somewhere." He peered over his little glasses, tapping the side of his nose. "_Very_ mysterious."

The gawking was joined by an eye twitch.

"…and seated in front, would be Grace. Grace is the daughter of one of our diplomats." Grace was a sleek-haired tanned girl who watched Raven with big crimson eyes and thick lashes. She put him in mind of a hungry cat. "Trained in the basic of fighting arts, she's testing a new zoid today. Which leaves us with…"The man then indicated to the girl seated beside him, her hair a mass of pale green curls that framed her pixie face delicately. "Lumin-La."

The giggly one.

"Lumin-La is a Zoidian, found-"

"_What_?" Raven spat out. Oh Gods, _no_.

"A Zoidian, there's no need to wor-"

"Forgive me, _sir_, but you're breaking a level three protocol by bringing a Zoidian into a public area and on top of that into an official mission!"

"Afraid you can't do anything?" Flick gloated.

Raven's eyes were fierce. "No. Standard military rules state that a Zoidian must be held within protective custody until their abilities are measured and quarantine has been established."

Lumin-La flushed unpleasantly, her eyes wide with embarrassment, shame and possible tears. "I-I didn't know. I just woke up, and-"

"Who was the team taking care of you?" Raven snapped, not at all moved by feminine weakness. "Why on Zi did they allow you out-"

"She's not a dog you know." Snapped Rosalita, finally moving from her position of indifference at the wall.

Grace cocked her head to the side, those lashes making an almost audible hiss as she blinked. "What _is_ a Zoidian anyway?"

Raven fought down his first impulse to shake everyone within the room and turned quickly on his heel, stalking out of the room and down the hall as fast as he could and ignoring the yells from Flick and the various adults. He didn't stop until he reached the outside world, taking a deep, clean breath of air and reaching into the pocket of his uniform pants to draw out his communicator.

They weren't really allowed on campus but his psychiatrist had suggested it to the school counsellors that – well, in cases like this – something needed to be countered, he had to contact someone.

So he did.

Or at least tried to.

Three secretaries and a put on hold later, he was told that the person he was searching for was out, but had been made aware of the situation and had noted that there was nothing to be done.

With a heavy heart, Raven listened to what the last secretary had to say, taking it all in until it made a big stone at the bottom of his gut, and then disconnected, walking, or perhaps shuffling, back into the office.

This wasn't going to be good at all.

_~To be continued!_


	4. Chapter 4

_Nobody believed me on the quarantine thing. _

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.4**

Grace was going to be trouble from the get-go.

Raven sat on a munitions crate outside the general purpose locker rooms, starting moodily at his half eaten ham and cheese sandwich. It lacked mustard. And fresh bread.

After he'd accepted (kicking and screaming of course, Prozen would be hearing about this later) they'd all been bundled up on a military shuttle to make their way to the Orion Base, just on the outskirts of the city. Most newcomers went there for basic field training and zoid handling, so it made sense for the newbies to store their zoids there.

He wasn't jealous. No. Not one bit. Not one iota as Grace pranced around a red, pink and gold monstrosity that looked like it belonged to some movie somewhere. The work in progress name was the 'Energy Liger', but it didn't look like a Liger. It looked like someone rolled a Shield Liger in super strength glue and covered it with spikes and wings and cannons and gods knew what else. Exactly how it would manage to move beneath the armour it was covered with Raven didn't know – it was pretty, and shiny, and obviously arcanite, one of the most stable, inert, and hard to work with armours known to mankind.

Grace was swanning around it, a picture of elegance in a terribly fluffy dress, little tiny shoes and bitching at the mechanics currently trying to make the zoid move. She was under the impression it was their fault and not shoddy design work.

Ah well. It was best to get on with work, wasn't it? He stuffed the sandwich into his mouth, choked a little on it and managed to swallow then wandered off to find his zoid. It was a standard issue Zabrefang.

Perhaps here and now he would have gotten into a mental loop of how much he hated zoids – but hating them and working with them were too different things. This particular Fang was one he used regularly, so for the most part the wariness had worn off. Besides, knowing your enemy was half the battle and he'd been through enough training to understand the Zabrefang series inside and out.

It seemed okay. It was dwarfed by the battle-ready zoids currently in the other slots – Ironkongs, the lot of them, but there was nothing untoward there.

"Hey! You!"

Raven didn't respond, even though he recognized the voice. A moment later a hand gripped the padding of his piloting uniform and he was spun around to get an eyeful of Rosalita. She was too close for one, and the cotton singlet she wore covered just enough flesh to not land her an indecent exposure in public charge. Just. "Take your hands off me."

"You still haven't apologised to little blue eyes over there, hidin' by her zoid!"

He caught the momentary green flash of jealousy, and drew back a little. "She's a Zoidian. She has to deal with it. It's not my problem."

"You're a cranky little kid aren't you?" She drew herself up haughtily, swinging her vivid ponytail over her shoulder. "Don't know why we gotta have some kid trailin' with us."

Raven shrugged off the comment easily. He'd heard enough of it in the school from those that didn't know his records. "You'd be cranky too if you were having to watch over four rookies with four untested zoids."

"Who are you callin' a rookie?! Me and Starfang over there have been doin' great right up 'till the Empire wanted a piece of this fine ass!"

Despite himself, Raven did look. He didn't sneak it either, and she preened beneath the surliness.

"Eyes up front, mister!" Rosalita snapped, clicking her fingers beneath his nose. "Typical soldier!"

"Which zoid is yours?" Raven asked, tiredly.

She turned around, ass shining in her cut-off jeans. It was about as arousing as a pancake to Raven, who was only just starting to explore his own sexuality and had discovered quite quickly that a girl who knew how to handle her gun and to run the obstacle course and not be afraid to get dirty was the most attractive thing at the moment. He wondered what she was trying to prove, dressed like that? It wasn't military dress. "That bold and beautiful girl over there."

He looked. It was a dog zoid. Raven frowned, now, dog-style zoids were favoured by the Republic. If this was an attempt to slide into their forces, it might work, but not painted gold with pink highlights. The reflective armour would probably cost a bundle to replace and would do nothing for the desert heat. "What is it?"

"What _is_ it?! You've never heard of the Konigwolf?! That beauty has won me heaps of fights-"

"I believe it's pointless." While Rosalita bristled in disgust, Harmony approached them in her cut-off khakis and shimmering, strappy peasant top. Did none of these girls understand the concept of military dress? Her messy hair that seemed to clump eerily into what looked like furry ears bothered him, and he had an unmistakable urge to groom her, just to see what was _in_ those matted tufts. She fixed Raven with eyes of surprising steel. "It's such a low-grade creature. Are you sure you didn't win those fights by your enemies simply rolling over and laughing? Hah."

Rosalita opened her mouth to respond, but Raven was already pulling away. He found it interesting that Rosalita had gone from chiding him about the Zoidian to stroking her own ego so quickly. He mentally filed that away quickly – she wanted to impress quickly and was going for the tough angle. Interesting behaviour. Harmony just liked insulting people. He couldn't see the zoid that might be hers – the curving lines and spikes of the remaining zoids were terrible to behold.

The Zoidian was still sitting miserably in borrowed clothes, brooding over a mug of something. He hoped it was not coffee. Zoidians and coffee were worrying – they seemed to lose all ability to function and just ended up helpless and chatty once the caffeine fried their brains. She cringed when he approached her, using the mug as a shield. Raven happily ignored it once more.

"Which zoid is yours, and have you been issued a uniform yet?"

Lumina-La gulped, her voice quivering. "Um, um, no? And, um, that one over there."

Oh _Christ_. He followed her outstretched finger. At least Rosalita's zoid had made sense. This one was a flying _horse_. "Does it have a name?"

She seemed to warm to him then. "It's, uh, it's an Oruduis. They are sacred, you know, but I don't remember why. I call him Mister Cloppy." Enthusiastic nodding. Right.

"You _named_ your zoid?" Raven went to say something else, but gave up under those watery, miserable eyes. "Look. Uh, we have to ship out and ship out soon. D'you see that door over there? The one labelled supplies? Could you outfit yourself over there? They have people who can help out and-" He trailed off, as Lumin-La's eyes welled up into an ocean of angst. Maybe there was something in her eye, but whatever. "When you finish your drink and stuff. I…Uh…I need to be briefed."

Even as he said those words, one of the attendants was already calling them over, and bringing out cases. This would have been interesting, but Raven didn't have time to watch - the hanger doors were only open a crack from his position, but it was a large enough passage for a military jeep to buzz through and drive up the central deployment area, it's whirring engine lost in the high ceilings of the building. He felt relief for a moment as he recognized one of the people in the jeep – but oddly enough his second in command, Patricia Hardin, was missing.

Ignoring the other people in the jeep, Gunther Prozen, Minister of Defence for the Guylos Empire, scowled fiercely when his entourage tried to placate him with paperwork and what looked like an officially looking phone. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but Prozen finally turned around and added hand actions to his words and everyone backed off.

Raven saluted him as he approached. "Good afternoon, sir."

"Afternoon already? Tch. At ease, cadet." Prozen folded his arms. He'd opted for his former military attire as opposed to robes of office – a lot cooler in this weather and definitely more imposing. Perhaps not as vivid, and Raven suppressed a smirk at the thought of the missing heels. "Are those girls by the supply store the platoon you have to lead today?"

"Supposedly, sir." Raven replied, relaxing a little. While they were on business he had to keep up appearances, but he desperately wanted to stomp around and yell, a lot. It always made him feel better. "Uh. One of them is a Zoidian. Possibly two, but the other one is just kind of quiet and says weird things."

Prozen twitched. He managed to work out just a frown, and not a full on explosion of fury. "Do you know anything about either of the subjects?"

"It's the green-haired one that I know is a Zoidian. I think it's a girl, but I can't be sure." Raven folded his arms, glaring at his shoes. "It's not had a medical, and it's not had its shots. The other is…uh, the blond one? She's been out longer so I don't know. She's giving us the evil eye. I really don't want to do this."

"If it…if _they_…drops dead it's not your fault. We've only had three drop dead on us so far, so if either of them start scratching and it looks like chicken pox, just make sure she doesn't come too close to everyone else and she'll eventually keel over and die. We'll write her off securely and burn the remains. How about runny eyes?"

"Uh. Define runny? Greenie's pretty wet at the moment."

"Watch out for mucus." Raven twisted himself up into a look of horror and disgust. "Don't make that face, just be aware of it. She starts weeping pus, you shoot her quick and come back here right away for a full chemical shower. Get the other girls to come with you – think of it as a holiday for the month you'll be in quarantine. I promise ice-cream and cable access."

Raven eyed him nervously despite ice-cream being the obvious awesome factor. "How'd you know about that?"

"Let's just say I have some inside information and a second hand account from a Republican platoon that went horribly awry."

Raven felt ill. "Were there any survivors?"

"We stopped one person from dying completely…"

"That's good, isn't it?" The youth whimpered.

"…but he lost an arm and both feet when his body shut down." Prozen looked away for a minute, enough for Raven to miss the moment of pure panic, his voice tightening a little in embarrassment due to the fact he was speaking with a fourteen year old . "Milk-eye is highly contagious and lethal if in it's weeping stages. Even the zoids will have to be incinerated. For Zoidians it's just a minor infection that keeps on coming back like a whole-body herpes…for us its mucus _Ebola_." A pause, his voice dropping to a hiss. "You don't repeat this to anyone, by the way. Gods, I can't believe I'm talking to you about this. Have their zoids been checked out?"

"Standard procedure, isn't it? It's not like I'm having sex with them or anything, geez, we've been through the Talk already, and I'd _totally_ use protection." Pause. "Uh, _sir_." It was nice to watch him squirm, but it was equally embarrassing for Raven to say the same thing. He guessed it was more embarrassing if it was like, his own parents or something. With Prozen it was merely an inconvenience punctuated with amusing anecdotes and a rather nice, open view on it. "I haven't been given a report on the zoids, sir, but I presume the chief of staff here will already have a paper written up for you to look at." He hesitated. "Uh…"

There was a moment of softening in that hard exterior. "You have doubts, cadet?"

_Fuck yes I have doubts_. "My concerns are centred around the willingness to participate and…'" Crap, now he had to think a little about how to phrase this with so many people watching. "…theeee…uhhh…the condition of the zoids we'll be travelling with." To hell with it. "Can't we put them in normal, workable zoids?" Ouch. Too much of a whine there. Inwardly he cringed, and he knew, just knew, Prozen had picked up on it.

"What's the matter, afraid of a little new equipment?" Prozen raised an eyebrow, even grinned a little, but Raven had long ago learned to read his eyes. He could get _anyone_ to believe him, but he couldn't control his eyes.

"It's not the equipment I'm afraid of."

Distantly there was the clashing of glass and someone yelling. Raven ignored the flurry of activity at the supply store, trying not to stare in horror at the behaviour there.

Grimacing, and realizing now that this is what Prozen had to face every goddamn day, he took a breath and asked the question. "May I have the mission, sir?"

Lumina-La streaked away from the crowed, crying uncontrollably as Grace ripped through the containers. "Ugh. Better you than me. Just try not to kill them."

"Gee. _Thanks_."

~ _To be continued._

_As the chapters progress, I am liking the girls more and more. I am amused by this, and may use several of them again in future. _


	5. Chapter 5

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.5**

The desert sun beamed down on the string of zoids wandering through the desert, harshly reflective and definitely an odd group. Raven had put the entire comm system low enough to not be a bother as four girls asked questions, moaned, complained and asked where the bathroom was. If something came up, he'd hear it, but right now he had a course to chart and they weren't helping.

It was an over-nighter, and nothing too strenuous, which Raven was glad for – there was a dig about forty miles away out into this sandy area which had often been picked over and later used for training purposes by the Guylos Empire. It made sense to go out there, battle a couple of RevRaptor sleepers, get into the ruins, retrieve an item and then come home – there shouldn't be any kind of issue, nor trouble, it would be over. Quick and simple. Except they'd would have to look for said item carefully because it had been hidden, and this was to be played out as if it were real.

Prozen had said to think of it as hunting for an organoid.

This almost instantly got Raven's back up, but then he'd had the joy of watching four very, very angry young ladies come out in their piloting uniforms, all of which looked like they were about to kill him, or in Lumina-La's case, drown him in tears.

The Energyliger plodded along, groaning in the heat, its armour pinging unpleasantly. "Raven. RAVEN."

The singsong way in which Grace tried to get his attention put his back right up. Too bad she wasn't trained or he'd have a right to slap her because nothing was better than a good, equal scrap. Raven didn't trust a girl who didn't automatically go for the eyes in a bare-knuckle fight. "What, Grace?"

"I was wondering how long we'd be wandering around out here. It's hot."

"Yeah. It is, isn't it." Raven looked back down at the clipboard, balanced on his knee. One hand held a pencil, the other leaned against the Fang's control column – the zoid was practically on autopilot, quite content to ignore the circus following it.

"Aren't you going to do anything about it? You're the great Raven, top of the class, surely you could-"

"Great Raven my ass."

"Shut _up_, Rosalita, don't you _know_ who this guy _is_?!"

Time to turn the volume down again. Not before making a point however –

"Ladies, this is what we call an open comm line. Pretty much anyone can hear us right now, yeah? Sleepers, other patrols, and oh yeah, the _enemy_. Now we're lucky enough to be well within the border of the empire and the republic, but could I just point out, y'know, just for a second…Shut the fuck up or I'll come back there and shut you up myself. You don't like the heat? Why did you sign up? Don't like the mission? Welcome to the military. Don't leave ass-smudges on the door when you leave."

"Why are you so _mean_?"

"He's Minister Prozen's boy, it's hardly surprising." Grace was really getting into this. "Why, I'd be afraid for my virtue if he was any older!"

Virtue? What the hell was she talking about? Raven rolled his eyes, and realised he'd lost his place on the map.

Behind him, the KonigWolf was now standing to attention, ears pricked as its pilot stared in horror at this realization. _He's Prozen's __**son**__?!_

"This mission is doomed no matter how much you plan." Harmony's voice floated back, her zoid being well out of the way of the others. It was a Deathpion, coloured silver with red joints. Ugly, evil little bastard. Raven hadn't even realised it was there until she'd hopped in. Deathpions should be _banned_ for simply _existing_. "There's a great evil amongst us, waiting to feast upon our souls."

Out of the corner of his eye, Raven noticed that Harmony's own eyes were glowing.

He put it down to bad lighting. "You guys keep this up and we're turning around and all of you fail. If you're peeved at the pace, blame Grace and Lumina-La and their zoids."

"It'd be fine if you let me fly!" Green curls bounced. If that girl cried any more, her eyes would fall out of her head.

Raven shrugged, picking up his place again as they passed a few large, natural stone pillars that seemed to loom out of a dune quite spectacularly. The Giant's Fingers, the trainers called them. The geological strata made no sense for such stone to be there, but there they were. "Then fly."

"I…um, I need an organoid."

"I can fly too!" Grace cut in. The Energyliger bounded ahead a little bit, but being on the spine of a dune and then moving to it's sides was a mistake for the top heavy beast. With a lurch, and a small scream, the whole thing toppled over and landed heavily on its side, wings flapping comically and only serving to pull it into sand faster. "Oh my God! Oh my God! My daddy's going to kill me!"

Rosalita managed a laugh, and Harmony was watching all of this with an evil grin on her face. The flying-unicorn-thing Orudius – quite inappropriate to be out here in the first place – trotted down the dune and tried to use it's headspike to right the struggling Liger except it only caused more damage. Raven watched the pantomime with interest, especially when the Orudius decided to reject its tape deck in disgust at its pilot's inability to pilot. Raven had been born after the compact cartridge evolution, so watching the little rectangle opening on the zoid's control panel and covering Lumina-La with threads of black tape was both disturbing and hilarious.

Taking pity on her as she struggled beneath the black spaghetti, Raven soon joined her, nudging Lumina-La's best intentions out of harm's way. In the end it took all four of the righted-zoids to fix the wronged-one, although Harmony probably only made things worse when she dug her Deathpion's massive claws into the circuits of the Liger's legs, pulling it roughly. The Liger screamed in protest, but they eventually fixed it up, congratulating themselves loudly in the process.

All except Raven, of course. Seeing all the zoids moving clumsily about, he wondered if they were going to make it at all.

"You okay, Grace?"

"My zoid is scratched. Harmony did it on purpose!"

"You're using a zoid with a high center of gravity in an inappropriate environment. It doesn't matter what Harmony did to you, or what anyone else did to you – it's your responsibility to make the damn thing work. Don't blame the machine or anyone else on your own mistakes." Although it was easy to do. Raven hoped none of them knew he was just parroting back what he'd been told time and time again, but in the heat of the moment it was kind of hard not to blame the machine for failing you when you needed it most. The only difference was that Raven did know how to use the zoid in question; Grace was mucking about and making a right mess.

They resumed their journey, and when they passed the third marker – signalling to anyone who knew that they were venturing into Sleeper territory, Raven paused for a moment, bringing the Fang to a stop. "Okay kids-"

Rosalita spluttered. "_Excuse_ me?"

"I am over a thousand years old. Do not speak down to your obvious superior, mortal." Christ, Harmony was on some serious trip there.

"Keep an eye on your radar – we should be moving into a Sleeper zone. If the team's already gotten off their asses and updated them by radio, they should be on the look out for us. Points go to whoever doesn't trip a platoon and makes it to…" He scanned the horizon. "There."

"What _is_ that?"

"An old munitions outpost." Raven left out the part about the village it had been attached to right before the war forty years ago decimated it…and the consequent attempts to repopulate that was all met with failure. Place gave him the creeps, but he wasn't about to show that. "We camp there for the night."

_- To be continued_


	6. Chapter 6

_Obligatory 'Evil Overlord Post'…_

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.6**

It was at this time, while the sun was starting to set, that Prozen was calmly starting to pack up his desk and consider going home. He'd stayed a little later than he'd hoped, and he was pretty much alone inside his office, so naturally, nothing should have stopped him from just…going.

The apartment was his tonight. His alone. The idea of renting a movie and getting take-out and not having to share was delightful, even slightly guilty as the back-seat driving parent in him suggested. It was very hard to ignore that little voice, because despite his demeanour of hard-handed military might and psychotic calm, he knew what being the odd one out was like and really, genuinely, liked his brattish adopted son. Even with the tantrums and the constant BUT THE ZOID BLEW UP ON ITS OWN excuses.

The spacious office didn't need much in the way of closing down, and the cleaner was already poking his nose around the door and making shooing gestures for Prozen to hurry up – he obliged, but not before refilling the kettle and making a fresh pot of coffee.

After all, you take care of your cleaners – they know where your dirt is hidden.

"Mighty busy two floors down." The man said looking over the rims of his glasses. Behind him the door opened again – two of the other cleaning staff members were crowded around the office's tiny kitchenette, where Prozen's secretaries had been a few hours before.

The words were innocent enough, but Prozen understood the code of the invisible staff of the palace. "I see. I should go and see what the trouble is. Might be nothing."

The man smiled, showing broken teeth. "Could be a mouse."

_Oh dear_. Prozen decided he should hurry.

~ _To be continued._

_To answer an unsigned reviewer – these aren't parodies as such, they were played straight faced amongst other rather odd characters in an rpgsite I was on ages back. The only things missing are that the zoids appear as either Blade Ligers or whatever is the flavour of that month but are 'secretly machines of death' except the players piloting them were…well, not very good. And would then lurk in rp for awhile throwing themselves in danger/ trying to get attention and then disappearing. I met only one straight-faced player of such a character who started as a mary-sue but did salvage the character to a vengeful single mum which was pretty awesome. _

_Everyone else got mad, got an rp-boy/girlfriend and then proceeded to talk the talk but not walk the walk. Prozen, masquerading as Just Another Peon ran afoul of many of these players, but either played dumb and skipped away with fingers in his ears or beat them with the zoid equivalent of a foil-covered chocolate rabbit - the Glowfox. Good times. _

_Raven is the current flavour of the month, but then he usually is because the person who elects the flavours likes him a lot. _


	7. Chapter 7

_Alright, alright, I admit I ripped off some back-stories here, but considering so many of them were reused over and over in this archive, I figured it would be okay. If you feel annoyed about it, feel free to let me know, 'cos you have every right to. Also, be warned for some foul language and sexual themes.  
_

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.7**

The fire licked the approaching night sky with tongues of orange and yellow sparks, the warmth a godsend as the desert grew cold and alive beneath their feet. Things scuttled in the underbrush, dislodging sand in some places, squeaking and fighting in others. Raven felt at home with these sounds because he knew what most of them were, and took steps to not have to bother with them – the last thing he wanted was a lizard up his jacket. His Zabrefang was now crouched and curled up, and his bed-roll was spread over a paw and safe from harm, but in the direct line of warmth from the fire below and with enough cover to ignore the prattling down below.

At least now the girls understood the importance of a uniform that you could move around in. Climbing down had been a mission in itself for Grace and Harmony – Lumina-la had sort of…fallen out, and Rosalita, who, funnily enough was now furthest away from the fire, had been quite happy to jump out un-aided.

They had all eaten, or at least taken some sustenance. That too, had been an effort. Raven didn't mind field rations, but Grace had been adamant that everyone have tea and be social and have, like, biscuits or something. Raven just set up the radio and set it for the broad-range trade talk which was usually the best place to pick up tips of zoids in the area. It was a good thing he was listening to the radio – he couldn't hear anything going on beneath him.

"It's so cold out here. Why is it so cold?" Lumina-La had not bothered to lay her bedroll down on the sand by the fire, she had it wrapped around her like some kind of strange cocoon.

Harmony turned to her, face still as passive as a brick, eyes luminous. "The desert is cold because it feels nothing for us. We are but grains of sand amidst its grip, slipping between time's fingers."

"…Or it just might be deserts get cold. You know. _Maybe_." Grace growled, knowing that sarcasm was very unladylike, but then most of her day had been unladylike. She felt very annoyed by all of this and was wishing she hadn't come despite knowing she had a very special mission. Her father had asked her to get close to Raven, and she'd liked the idea, having seen him at the social gatherings her father threw for the politicians and other ministers of parliament. He wasn't a primping, arrogant little snot like many of the boys she knew, and besides, Minister Prozen had that kind of, creepy hotness thing, about him. Banishing dirty thoughts from her supposedly innocent mind, she plucked at the hem of her jacket, looking up soulfully at the reclining form, his back to them. "Why is everyone else here? I know why _I'm_ here, of course, but-"

"Why _are_ you here?" Asked the Lumina-La caterpillar.

Harmony took this as being another chance to say something disturbing. "She's looking for sanctuary in the arms of death."

"_Actually_, daddy just wants me to get the inside scoop on Minister Prozen. He feels Raven's the way to do it."

Pale blue eyes widened. "_Why_?"

"Because he's Prozen's son, and with a lot of political influence? Why'd you think?"

"Oh." A pause before a rush of words: "I'm here because I'm going to find ZoidsEVE." For once, Lumina-La wasn't feeling sorry for herself. She was actually finding it quite nice out here despite having a zoid that only half worked and missing an organoid she couldn't quite remember. A big fat spider was currently spinning a web in the brush beside her, and she was watching it with amusement as the breeze kept blowing it off course. She felt a little sorry for it too, but then it was a silly spider to build a web so high. "I need to find my lost memories."

Silence reigned for a bit, complete with crackling flames and the distant shriek of something soft and furry getting eaten by something with feathers and claws.

"I am searching for a meaning to an end." Harmony said, feeling that this was the right time to reveal her true, if rather mentally unstable, nature. "I am an angel who has lost her wings and must…" She dramatically put her hand to her chest, the effect dampened by her being as flat as a pancake. "…find them to restore order to the souls of the universe."

She was vaguely aware of the eyes on her, but surprisingly it was Lumina-La to comment. "That sounds real nice and all, but doesn't explain much."

"I do not have to explain my treacherous path to you mere mortals!"

"It'd help, though." Grace sipped her tea. "Sounds like a lot of waffle to me. How about you, Rosalita? You've been brooding more than short, dark, and irritable up there." Rosalita had indeed not said a word, and sat gloomily by her zoid, staring into the flames. Maybe she was cold but it was hard to tell because she didn't seem to want to join anyone there. Grace frowned, and Harmony stared in disgust as Lumina-La urged a gecko to climb up the bush and get the spider. "Rosalita? Zi to Rosalita, come in!"

"I heard you just fine." Came the growl. Her eyes shone, liquid in the light. "I'm just here to avenge my parents."

"Why? What did they do?"

"They _died_."

It sounded very dramatic. With a plop, the gecko, complete with spider in mouth, dropped to the ground by Lumina-La's hands. "My parents died too, I expect, seeing as there are no other Zoidians I know of around. You have my sympathy, but, you know, it happens to everyone."

She was either being completely innocent about the whole matter, or a total bitch. Rosalita didn't care. "Shut up and cry a river!"

The insult flew over her head. "Oh no, I'm feeling _much_ better now." She smiled at the lizard. "I'm going to name you Sticky! Want to be friends?"

Harmony took an interest however, because nothing sounded better than a genuine tragedy. "Were their lives spirited away by murderous bandits?"

"Oh, that's what I told the instructor. No." Her green eyes seem to come alight as she faced Harmony, being able to pull off the mad-demonic-mysterio in much better form. "_Prozen_ had them killed."

A startled gasp went around the circle. Suddenly all of them were close, and had there been fluffy pyjamas and marshmallows, this would have been a sleepover.

"Oh my God, are you for _serious_?!" Grace hissed.

Rosalita drew herself up, tearfully. "It's totally true. They were amazing zoid pilots and scientists, and they discovered something really, really important, and Prozen killed them. You know, just because he could and all. He's so evil."

Harmony felt a thrill here, but didn't say anything. The dismay on Rosalita's face was _too_ delicious. "But why the Empire? Shouldn't you have gone to the side of the Republic and joined their ranks to tear him down?"

"Pfft, you don't know shit about revenge, weirdo." The mood was broken as Rosalita eyed off her new rival with newfound zeal. "I'm going to get into the Imperial military, and I'm going to go up the ranks. I'm going to get him to trust me, through Raven, through Karl Shubaltz, through heaps of others, and when he least expects it; I'm going to kill him. But not before telling him."

It was at this time that Grace actually shrank away from the fire, her expression being that of mild, lady-like shock. Lumina-La was listening with rapt attention like a child being told a story.

Brushing a tuft of hair over her shoulder, Harmony looked down upon Rosalita with an evil glare. "That sounds rather childish to me. Very…petty."

This wasn't good at all. Rosalita curled her lip, angered at the disrespectful way her plan was being treated. "You have a better idea, _weirdo_?"

"Pfft, _obviously_." Harmony slipped out of character for a moment, flapping her hand at Rosalita's face in amusement. "Duh. You need to break the man before you kill him. Schmooze up to one of his subordinates, even him, doesn't he like little kids or something?" Her voice dropped, pointing theatrically to Raven as the other girls looked on, disgusted. "Just think, you totally get him over to your side, make him your patron or something, then break his heart and THEN a year later or something when he's a raving drunk, you kill him in the street. In full view of everyone. Or just leave him there, I don't know, people's last memory of the great and savage Minister Prozen is one of complete and total disgrace."

Rosalita considered this, playing with the end of her ponytail. "You know, that sounds really awesome, actually."

The four of them went quiet then as the plan sunk in, or in one case, leeched out of a pair of pixie-ears. With nothing more to say, suddenly it became rather uncomfortable, so Lumina-La broke the silence with a big grin. "Let's play I-Spy!"

The phrase brought Grace around from her horrified mental picture. "You two are _sick_." She muttered, getting up and dragging her own bedroll back to her zoid, following by Raven's example. _And also so mean. I'll protect you, Raven._ She clenched her fists with that thought, looking over her shoulder for a moment at the hunched form protecting what was possibly a can of beans from their meagre dinner an hour or so before.

Ewwwww. _Beans_.

Their truce was fake, but Rosalita flopped back down onto the mat, her mouth on autopilot and not caring for the wildlife currently attracted to the flames. She felt good about letting all that out, even though she was fifteen she'd been on the road for _years_ you know, and so was _just_ in her desire to kill the man who had destroyed her life. The only issue was that she was afraid of falling for Raven, even she'd not known him for a few hours or so. She felt so close to him, so close to that damaged, angry heart. They could be angry and damaged together and blow shit up. Shit would be _so_ cash. Grace was an issue. Grace might tell Prozen…

Horrifyingly Harmony was thinking much the same thing, except it was coloured by the thoughts that it was her Destiny to be together with Raven and she would make him just as immortal as she was and they'd rule Zi together under a blanket of darkness and demons and stuff. There _would_ be babies, but they'd be the horned demonic angel-winged kind Harmony fantasized about. She and Raven were Meant To Be, which meant she had to protect him from Rosalita's influence. She had no desire to help out Prozen, Rosalita could have him, but Raven, oh, tall, gorgeous, mature Raven would be _hers_. If Rosalita interfered, Harmony would do what was necessary to make sure their Destiny would be fulfilled. Her pale eyes took in the form of Grace, across their campsite. The same went for her. No idea what this whole political thing was about, but Grace was certainly one to be worried about.

Lumina-La just sort of fell asleep, slumping forward in her cocoon and snoring loudly, completely unconcerned that her companions each dismissed her as a wet tissue capable of speech. There was no mucus, but there was a very loud sneeze.

In the distance, noticed by none of the girls and ignored by Raven who was now fast asleep, the sand shifted, and optics flashed as they took the children, and the zoids, in. Claws clicked, and processors whirred menacingly. Patience was a virtue, however, so they did not attack, but the air-waves were filled with one word.

_Organoid_.

- _To be continued._


	8. Chapter 8

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.8**

The two Rev-Raptors smoked unhappily in a little heap, their pilots ashamed and finding their boots very interesting as the second Zabrefang passed and went on it's way. Distantly you could hear some kind of loud music, the kind someone puts on as driving music except really loud.

Both men felt incredibly stupid, but then it had been easy to fall for the whole 'oh wow, secret treasure!' idea that was going around. It was easy to believe what with the empire searching for those golden treasures, those organoids, but quite a few had taken the mission as being serious – and if that was happening in their camp, it was possibly happening in the enemy's.

Even worse, they found out, the pretend mission from the school hadn't even been processed and thought out correctly.

The treasure wasn't even _hidden_ yet.

Both men should have been thankful they were not on the receiving end of Errol Flick's dressing down when the school heard about the fast-tracked girlies and their special zoids. Just because the emperor wanted things done quick didn't mean it could go on without the rules in place.

Teeth gritted, anger steaming from every pore, the Fang pilot pushed the zoid into a canter and headed towards the distant ruins, hoping like hell he'd make it there before the kids did and manage to do so while taking out every other idiot along the way.

It would be a long night. Somewhere, a dialled take out curry was going cold.

_~ To be continued_


	9. Chapter 9

_There is a lot of potty talk in this chapter…uh, sorry. _

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.9**

"Rise and shine."

The sun was just peeking over the horizon, the night hadn't been long and Raven felt warm and rested, stretching with a smile as the first touch of warmth of the new day. Beneath him, on the ground and around the remains of the fire, three people were struggling to wake up and were failing, miserably. It wasn't until Raven restarted the fire with a lighter he'd nicked during his fire-starter faze a year or so ago that faces began to appear.

As the sky lightened the stark walls and husks of buildings long since abandoned came into view, creepy without their cloak of darkness. At least the night had hidden most of them from the eyes of the cadets, especially with the screens of scraggly bushes and low garden walls and sand, but now it was a different matter entirely. Raven wanted to leave the place as soon as possible – it hadn't been long abandoned, he'd been through here six years ago when he'd first met his foster father and travelled with the remains of a search-and-rescue platoon that had turned to organoid hunting. There were still people there. When the Republic came through, however, it was a different story. Old ghosts watched Raven from the windows, and he felt the fear rise in him again, focusing on the task at hand to help him smooth it over.

He was surprised when Grace appeared beside him, scowling and rubbing her eyes fiercely, even more surprising that she was still dressed in uniform – not what he was expecting at all. "What time is it?"

"Five in the morning." He replied, thankful for the distraction. "Tea or coffee?"

"Coffee." Came the muffled voice by the bushes in the fabric cocoon.

"No." Raven shot back, wary of a Zoidian on Zoidian crack. "Grace?"

"It's five. In the morning. I can barely think straight." She wrinkled her nose as she gathered her thoughts, putting them in order as best she could. "I want a latte, but I don't think I'm going to get one, will I?"

"No."

"Croissant?" Raven glared at her. "Fine, fine. Tea. Because it's instant coffee you've got, haven't you?"

"You bet."

"Oh god." Grace moaned and slid to her knees, and sat there, watching him work for a moment before getting the picture she should be doing something to help. She poked the fire a little, and the flames came to life. She noticed a faint glimmer of a smile that flitted across his face, but it was quickly replaced by his neutral frown. "Where's the water?"

"The Zaberfang is equipped with fresh-water tanks mounted in the chest area. There's a vein you can tap on the left fore-leg, just above the ankle. Can you reach it?"

"Uh, yeah-" She got up, taking the offered kettle and tottered to the zoid to figure out how to get the zoid to share its water with her.

"You have a problem, just tell me, yeah?"

Grace waved him away, determined via ego to do the right thing, but she felt she'd made some progress if he was offering help to her without an insult.

Still around the fire, Harmony refused to move. She had returned to the universal state of teenagerhood, not at all wanting to wake up despite having a darker and perhaps more evil persona that she wanted to portray. It was also spoiled when Raven walked over and turfed her out himself, spilling the overly pale and quite frankly blotchy young lady onto her bottom, realizing she was wearing negligee.

Raven's lips peeled back, revealing his teeth – it was not a smile. "Get the fuck up or we leave you here. _Rosalita_." A hand popped out, flipping him the bird. Raven stalked over to her bedroll and pulled her free as well. "When the commanding officer says get up, it's not a choice, it's a demand."

"Don't you ever _question_ orders?!" Rosalita responded, grabbing her clothes and pulling them close to her in horror. This wasn't how she'd expected to wake up. Harmony was possibly thinking the same thing, but it was hard to tell - she was sitting with her head to one side and eyes staring off into the distance. "Do you follow everything you're told?!"

Rolling his eyes, Raven turned away, going back to the fire. How many times had he been asked that? How many fellow students had dropped out as time went on, when they realised the truth? "It's not like I'm asking you to kill puppies, Rosalita. I'm asking you to get up and get on with things. There are no lie-ins when you're part of the military except when you're off duty. And even then it's questionable. You want to question orders? Fine. The remains of this sorry party are going to move on and leave you behind. Without breakfast."

"Fuck you."

A clank alerted him to Grace's return with the water. She was fidgeting around the fire, trying to figure out how to get the pot in there without burning herself. In a heartbeat Raven was at her side, looping the metal handle over a stick and popping in into the ashes. "Wait for the bubbling."

"Okay."

Sad how the upper class one was the only one who gave a shit. Raven shook his head in disgust. It was most likely a family honour thing, but then most of the high-class bozos usually were. Especially that Shubaltz bastard who was impeccably horrible and holier than thou. The man didn't come to the school, but on his diplomatic visits, Raven had run afoul many a time on the blond colonel's watch and Prozen hadn't been able to save him from a right proper thrashing.

Lumina-La joined them, dragging her blanket with her. She was also fully dressed, although her jacket was on back to front with the buttons all done up. How she'd accomplished that Raven wasn't sure. "Breakfast?"

"Liquid breakfast. _Put down that coffee_. We can eat once we reach the ruins. "

Her hands were still searching through the pack he'd brought down from the Fang's storage facilities. "But I need something now! OW!"

"Don't hit girls!" Would that pony-tailed vagabond ever get off his case? Rosalita's head poked over a handy wall she'd picked to change behind. 'You're such an asshole!" She was blushing for some reason, Raven couldn't fathom why.

"I tapped the back of her hand. Come over here and I'll cuff you if you want to see how hard I can hit." He growled. "You're not hurt badly, Lumina. Don't start crying, you know it won't get you anywhere." A shuddering gulp was all he got in reply, but it seemed that the travelling and the overnight stay had been enough to wear off the rough edges between them, and she nodded, brow furrowing. "Have some tea, take some paper and go do your business. We'll be moving in a half hour or so and we need to make up time – no toilet stops."

"You have anger issues." Lumina-La said, her voice curiously level. She still took a steaming mug as Grace prepared them, and picked up a roll and a strange plastic spade that had 'poo spade' written on it in thick marker. "What am I supposed to do with this? It's not to wipe, is it?"

"It's to dig the hole, stupid." Rosalita finally joined them, stared at the tea in a horrified fashion, tipped hers out and reached for the instant coffee.

"And what do I do with the hole?"

"You take a shit. It's not rocket science."

"Don't be crude, Raven." Grace chided him. "Give me a moment and I'll come with you to show you – you dig a small hole, you do your business in it and you cover it up afterwards. No unsightly toilet paper or things to stand in because everyone knows that no matter how big the desert is, you will always put your foot in, err, someone's business."

Lumina La seemed to like this idea and was happy to cling to Grace while the others waited for Harmony to make her appearance. It wasn't very graceful or even pleasant, and it wasn't until Raven was packing up camp that she finally made an appearance. She had tried to apply dark circles beneath her eyes and claim she'd been up all night talking to the ghosts that lived there, but the sleep in her eyes and the mascara in her hand said otherwise.

The ghost thing hit a little too close to Raven and he was quiet until they were back in their zoids and moving once more. It was sad, he felt, that Grace of all people and Lumina-La were shaping up to be the only good candidates there. The fight about the water and the showers for instance was insane – five minutes to go, they were on target, and suddenly everyone wants a shower? Here? What the hell?

Relieving himself against a wall and well out of sight of the others, Raven scanned the horizon (on tip-toes of course so he could see over the wall) and spied something that wasn't there before – a dust cloud. A dust cloud could mean many things – a dust storm, for example, migrating birds or possibly camels, a goods train, another military company…

…Or Sleepers. Suddenly it felt very important that they go and go now. He jiggled himself dry, tucked himself back into his flightsuit and ran back to his zoid – Lumina-La was already active, the Orudius snorting impatiently as a KonigWolf sulked – much like its pilot. Rosalita was swearing up something fierce by the time Raven was seated and strapped in. He was pleased to see that his camp was now completely gone – they'd buried the fire and scuffed the ground and that was it.

"We'll be heading 63 degrees north for a few hours before cutting through a known sink-hole field to our destination. We'll be going into radio silence as well 'cos of Sleepers, so I need you all to remember your field training-" _Oh please let them have taken that at least, they've only just really learned how to bloody pilot _"- and look for signs of sinkage."

There was a long moment of silence. It seemed to stretch and stretch, the four zoids staying silent and still as the Fang pulled away. Almost comically as Harmony was still half asleep, her zoid lifted a massive claw and scratched its carapace.

"I have no knowledge of these sinkholes you speak of, puny mortal."

Raven's commlink quickly shut off visual and audio as the zoid began to sway from side to side, faint glimmers of something through the plexiglass of the cockpit's viewing ports. Wisely, nobody decided to intervene – when Raven had a tantrum, _he had a tantrum_.

_~ To be continued._


	10. Chapter 10

_There is a LOT of foul language in this chapter and some very un-politically correct terms. On the upside it was **very **fun to write._

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.10**

Corporal Higgins couldn't believe his luck. He'd found the Zabrefang. The intel had been very, _very_ specific on that – the Zabrefang was the only zoid they could pinpoint _exactly_ to have left Orion base, the other four were either prototypes or non-Imperial zoids, and they'd lain in wait for absolutely _ages_ for the bugger to appear. It wasn't quite what the young Republican soldier was hoping for when he'd joined the army, because he'd wanted a quick promotion rather than working his way up slowly – catching a couple of Imperial brats favoured by the emperor _and_ find an organoid? Shit would be _so_ cash.

Provided of course, they could pull it off. If not, General Kruger would probably have him publicly flogged because he was on Imperial soil without permission and in one of their training areas _and_ he was AWOL from his unit. With a couple of mates. They'd drunk all the beer, so there was no evidence of unlawful drinking except for their breath, although the underwear in Mackey's cockpit did prove he'd been out a'whorin' when the informant gave them the info, provided they got rid of 'em and he was clean, it would be okay. They'd paid with cash after all. No paper trail.

Apparently some other Imperials had gotten excited about this as well, but it was just the one Fang and it had run into a claymore field that had been randomly put together. Higgins was a smart man, just using his smarts for the wrong thing – he'd equipped explosives along the routes he'd thought best. He'd had the man-power for it, so he'd picked the hardest accessible routes and the quietest – as a training area he thought it was pretty amazing. Maybe even a little envious of such a field, but it was for goddamn Imperials with all their Imperial gold, cheeky sods…!

The Fang flying up into the air and going over and over had been even _more_ amazing. It had landed with a brilliant crunch – and the zoid was still _functional_ although was now curled up and surrounded by Commandwolves and a Guysack – the pilot found unconscious and bloody from the landing. A heartbeat struggled beneath fingers, but he was too big to be a kid. The blood kind of obscured his face, coloured his hair a patchwork of grey and murky brown. Higgins had a thing about blood.

He used the snub-nosed muzzle of his gun to roll the man's face over, side to side, to try and get a clearer picture. The Imperial uniform was crumpled, a bit bloody, but it looked more official than the ones Higgins had come across in the past (and stolen the boots from, but hey if a guy was dead, he didn't need his boots, right?) but whatever. Facial markings looked kind of familiar, but nothing he could place in the haze of his hangover. He searched the man's pockets and found only a pen, two biscuits and an electronic pass card, useless out here but possibly important on the black market. His boots were too high for Higgins to utilise – they had a heel for some reason but then stretched out like this, the guy was almost a head shorter than Higgins so it made sense to bump himself up a little.

"This our boy, boss?" Lidl, sunburned and fat, had tied a hanky up and placed it over his shining head. Sweat left big marks on his uniform. "He don't look like a boy. Looks more like a fag."

"_You're_ a fag." Higgins growled back. "Find me a towel, will you? He might be comin' around in a minute, and from the look of his jacket I'd say most of that's filled with muscle." A pause. 'You know what muscle is, don't you Lidl? It's what you have when you're not fat."

"Cock." Lidl replied, tiredly. He felt Higgins was nothing more than a starving dog begging for scraps at the table of the higher-ups, so rarely rose to any insults. Besides, the guy would probably get himself killed one of these days anyway. "Not much water left seein' as _we didn't bother to stock up_ when we went over the border. This is a desert so, you know, we haven't got much to go 'round."

"Fuck ya mother." It was too hot to argue.

Lidl had to have the last word. "She'd eat you 'fore you made it to the door, boss. You'd be buried in her arse crack, you would, you're so thin."

The other two guys – actually, one of them was a girl – watched with interest. They were not part of the same unit as the arguing couple, but were happy enough to come along for the ride.

"You think he's got some kind of disease?" Mackey asked, peering close. He didn't bother to use his gun, his gloved hands moved over the man, pulling him this way and that, checking for gold fillings – his pliers were somewhere in his pack. "You don't normally see 'em so small and pale lookin'." A pause. "I'd fit his jacket. Do you think I'd fit his jacket?" Another pause, eyes shifty. "Can I have his jacket?"

"Yeah, sure." Higgins pulled himself up from his crouch, scanning the horizon. "We're missin' four zoids, I'd say this is one of our treasure hunters. From the look of 'im he's small fry. Not worth a turd."

Lidl shook his head. "Just 'cos he's small don't mean he's not important. All Imperials are short. He's just shorter than the rest."

Higgins couldn't believe his authority was being bucked for the second time that day. "How'd _you_ know?"

"Dunno, boss." Lidl replied, meeting his gaze coolly. "Maybe 'cos I've seen combat with 'em? We gotta stop dickin' about and call Major Ford 'fore we go further. Mackey, he's got dog-tags, take a look will you?"

Mackey, in the motion of undoing buttons and stripping the body unnervingly fast gave his companion the thumbs up. The person beneath him groaned quietly, but not enough to worry those around him.

"We gotta find those kids. We're sitting ducks out here. We got five Commandwolves and your Guysack – it's not exactly an invasive force, but it _will_ raise eyebrows." Lidl put his hands in his strained pockets, cocking his head to the side as his commanding officer strolled around their camp, ferret-eyes dancing across the lonely desert. "We got some poor sod mindin' his own business and Republican Claymores are all over the shop. Now our zoids can see 'em but at some point in time some poor little kid just out of wetting' their bed is gonna come a cropper on one and-"

He paused, just long enough for Mackey to make a quizzical sound. It was as if he were about to speak but instead there was a strange thumping noise. Lidl spun around to see Mackey stagger comically backwards, head to the sky as the Imperial soldier rolled back down, onto his front and onto his feet. Boot to the chin from lying down. _Phoarr_.

"Well that's just great." Lidl said quietly as Ida and Fleming – the other two members of their little shindig joined the fray. They were dispatched quickly – whoever this pale-haired Imperial was, he was bloody good, fag or no fag – with quick movements that executed the bare minimum of effort – signs, Lidl knew, of a trained, professional fighter. "We gonna do something, boss?"

There was no reply. The Corporal was running to his zoid.

Lidl continued to watch, not at all moved when Fleming was kicked aside – complete with grunted apology. She cursed and swore from the floor until Ida was thrown on top of her and Mackey moaned like a baby by the man's feet.

Bruised, black-eyed and bloodshot, the man glared at Lidl. "Well?"

"Sod ya, mate." Lidl replied, philosophically. "I pick m'fights. Not pickin' yours."

"…Right." The man made to go and grab his jacket, but Mackey whined like a dog and rolled onto it. He ducked under gravel a moment later when the man kicked into the dirt by his head. He then left them, running to his zoid which seemed quite happy to greet him.

The Guysack scittered up to where Lidl was standing, Higgins was red in the face. "WHERE'D HE GO, WHERE'D HE GO?"

The cloud of dust was all that was a left of the zoid and it's battered pilot. "I think he's pissed off into the wide blue yonder. Much like we should be doin', boss."

"Fuck that! Get in your zoids! Get that fucker, he's probably a patroller! We find those kids and that organoid _and_ that bastard_ we make this __**work**_."

_~ to be continued. _


	11. Chapter 11

_Battles always take up space :x extra long chapter this time! _

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.11**

Rosalita was a good pilot in the sense that she could make the KonigWolf run without tripping up and even coax it to jump when needed to – the massive sniper rifles though were a wince and a half. They bobbed up and down even in their folded position, and now and then the weird neck armour that Raven could see no use for jumped with it.

His Fang was slower of course, and definitely didn't have the reach, but the radar pinged faithfully with the ground that was ground and the ground that was actually a hole. There were ways out if you fell down one of them, or at least the instructors said there was. Raven was never sure about some of the people who taught him, so opted for the safer idea of avoiding the holes altogether.

The expanse of land looked like gentle rolling dunes that spread out to the horizon but was anything but. It had been discovered completely by accident and later used and monitored for training for subterranean training and zoid agility tests seeing as the natural ecology there was happy to cover up the holes again with loosely packed sand for the next hapless zoid to sink into. Nothing lived here, not even the desert grass or the tiniest beetle, and that was where the problem of the field came to a head. It was creepy. More than creepy, it was downright terrifying. He'd been through here several times on various training missions, but the booming sound of sand slipping into the dark was always a shock and he was waiting for it, feeling the sweat go down his back.

He knew they were standing on the rims of rock that lay beneath the surface of the desert, but he'd seen what the undersides of them looked like too. There was a rumour that there was a city down there somewhere, but Raven had never tried to find out even in his most rebellious phases. The first time he'd gone into such a place was when the Eisen Dragoons had picked him up several miles out from the Maha settlement, back when his – when something bad happened. When there was a lot of people he didn't know, and they were looking for something important. The memories surfaced for a moment, but he pushed them back down, letting the dark swallow them. He still had bad dreams sometimes, but his mind was healing, covering the memories of death and claws beneath a veneer of attitude and need for protection. Hating zoids was enough.

The Dragoons had gone into the caves once, but not all of them had come out. The Republic had followed them – probably revenge, but Raven was too young to think of any details. Some of it involved a fire, and a lot of screaming people. And an effigy on the wall, a doorway that lead to rubble and tubes and dead people. He'd never left Prozen's side the entire time, even when they were attacked by their own lot in the darkness…

Raven wanted to fling the canopy open and sit in the sun for awhile, but his responsibility lay with the newcomers, just as Prozen's had almost seven years ago.

"Try to stay with us, Rosalita." He called for the umpteenth time over the radio. He got a grunt in reply and a faint slowing of the defiant orphan, but not enough. It was probably best not to pursue, because behind him was a very frightened EnergyLiger that had decided that even if it's pilot wanted to go forward, it was having none of that.

Grace was coaxing it though hissing some very ladylike cussing between gritted teeth. Just across one rather large disguised hole, Lumina-La was having much more success, blindly trotting along – it was like the Orudius had some kind of shielding mechanism that stopped it from wandering into danger – ignoring any commands completely it was happy to wander by itself. Zoidian technology, obviously. Raven sniffed, not liking it at all. Someone had snuck the girl some coffee as well, which was why she was suddenly all light and flowers and big eyes. Coffee. Ecstasy for Zoidians.

Behind him, now paying extreme attention to everything going on around her, Harmony had gone chalk white and was gripping her zoid's controls. The sinkholes were hardly the kind of white knuckle ride her face was portraying but whatever. Her zoid was large enough not to worry too much about a slip or so with it's leg reach and low centre of gravity, but that was inexperience and an unknown zoid for you.

Things seemed to be going well which was why Raven was growing increasingly more suspicious. The radar had told him about an hour ago that they were completely alone – but now some very obvious revraptor signs were around, and a redhorn was about three miles back and making good time. Raven cautiously felt for the radio, still keeping an eye on the depth detector, the zoid shifting with a patience as old as time itself to let the sand resettle and let it go on. Twisting the dials carefully, back and forth, Raven listened for voices, feeling his stomach sink.

Snatches of tune he ignored, it wasn't unusual for AM-talkback radio and military bands to be crossed, but a conversation between several soldiers he'd never met made him frown. Their accents were Northern, terms Imperial. Was there supposed to be other trainees out and about today? No, surely not. He skipped past the band to find open channels with nobody transmitting – but waiting. He knew _that_ trick, he was doing it himself – it had been the first Prozen had taught him. Listen in, see what everyone's doing. Keep quiet.

Had to be the Redhorn pilot. Maybe. The depth detector bleeped and the zoid pulled up, knocking Raven out of his moment of concentration. Scowling he nosed the zoid out of the dead end and went to look for another path across, almost bumping into Harmony in the process.

"Why'd you stop?!"

"Wrong way. Just watch the depth detector. The zoid knows what it's doing, it likes being operational even if it has a meatsack behind the controls."

"What did you just call me?!"

"It wasn't personal, Harmony – he just doesn't like zoids. Thinks they're all out to get us or something." Grace cut in. When had she been listening in? Top marks for that.

"Yeah, but _he called me a __**meatsack**_!"

"Harmony, chill." Rosalita called out, her connection coming through buzzy. "I…Uh, I have long-range stuff on this zoid. I never really use it unless I'm gonna steal something."

Damn. Raven closed his eyes for a moment to think before opening his mouth. "I don't think they're hostiles. They're approaching the field, but they're not entering it."

"Wait, what?! We're not alone?!" Harmony groaned.

Raven flicked on his view screens so they all displayed properly – he preferred working alone and not checking in on team-mates, and now he felt just that little bit guilty. He hadn't realized the girls were so scared. Clumsy, complaining idiots maybe, but not _afraid_. Except Lumina-La of course. She'd wandered even further ahead than Rosalita. "We have a few stragglers, but I think they're crews from the school. They shouldn't bother us."

"But how do they know?!"

Rosalita face-palmed. "Gee, because we have non-standard zoids?"

"Not exactly." Raven leaned back, folding up his notebook as the Fang found a new path to take. It waited for the Deathpion to grab a hold of it's tail again and began to walk, head down and sensors on maximum. The motion was disorientating and Raven found himself being pressed into the restraint harness, his hair falling into his eyes at the change of position. "Each zoid has a unique signal, right? A barcode if you will. Letters and numbers, even if the core is cloned it's tinkered with just enough for it to show up as an individual. In a military zoid this code is always broadcasted as part of the zoid's black box to show where it is and where it is – so you don't attack your own side. If you come across a zoid that's not registered to your system, you know it's a civilian zoid, ex-military or the other side."

"Raven, _none_ of ours are military."

He shrugged. "For one you're travelling with one that _is_. For all they know I could be escorting prisoners – but I'm not and you're not because the technicians assigned all four zoids with a temporary code. All these guys are from empire. They're scoping us out and we're doing the same. We should be-"

Raven didn't finish, because a moment later Lumina-La started screaming. He scowled, twisting around to see what happened to the Orudius, but she was not disappearing into a hole as he first thought, quite the opposite. It took him a moment to register the _zing_ of bullets, caught only by the Orudius's armour exploding into shards by the head and neck.

Rage swelled within him – cockpit shots! On their own side!

"Sod this." He hissed. "Harmony, stay where you are."

"_Where are you going?!_" Came the hysteric shriek.

The zoid wriggled free of the Deathpion's frightened embrace, body bunching up. Fangs were hardy bastards, they'd been part of the Empire's military regime, almost unchanged, for over fifty years, and sinkhole fields were no trouble at all.

The Fang leapt for the next invisible platform, foreleg slipping a little as the zoid landed, struggling to regain control. The sand shifted, untrustworthy as what was beneath responded to suck him down. Raven didn't have time to sit and think about what was just off to his left, he swung a hard right and the Fang shifted into pursuit mode. Raven had to guess the distances between island to island, but the Fang was compensating for every leap he made, constantly updated by the radar as they moved along.

He had to hurry.

The shots kept coming. The horse-zoid spun on its hooves, rearing up like it's flesh-and-blood inspiration, wings flapping madly.

"Lumina-La! Gain control!"

Perhaps she couldn't hear him. Maybe she didn't care. Raven got no response except wailing as the sliver creature flashed in the sun. His own armour started to ping as bullets ricocheted into him as well. Using the Orudius as cover for his approach would generally be considered wrong, but even with the reinforced carapace fitted, Raven didn't trust a direct shot.

The Fang's great torso didn't swing – it's legs did, the body upright and in perfect balance as the zoid sped across the dunes. Raven swung around the bucking Orudius, realising beneath the zoid was a ground about to break – and came into full view of their attackers.

Revraptors.

He couldn't tell if they were manned, and it didn't matter. They were crouched just beyond the edge of the sinkhole field, bodies low enough to avoid direct fire, while still keeping their little machine guns ready, looped over the foreclaws. They looked menacing in this light, but up close they were just stupid machines – Raptors were rarely used by anyone talented due to all the restrictions on them. Point and shoot was all they were good for at the moment.

Raven sped towards them, trying to weave in and out of the shots and reduce the damage to his zoid – it wasn't easy, alarms were sounding now, the Fang's AI picking up that things were not right. Overshooting the final hurdle, Raven shoulder-charged into the first wave, hearing metal shriek against metal as his vision became full of claws and snapping teeth. No transmissions – motions repetitive – Sleepers!

As the momentum eased, Raven dug a forepaw into the sand and swung the great zoid's hips around, pivoting and then swinging himself off the sand to mule-kick a jumpy one in mid-air. The landing was hard, the Fang's chest armour and front legs damaged by the run up. He could hear the stop-caps squeaking as they fought to remain stable, the squeal of joints that were starting to slow. Ducking down low and now sure he was on safe ground, Raven pulled open the heat-release valve, punching it with a snarl. His view was obscured for a moment as the over-heating zoid opened all of its vents, plunging the surrounding area into a cloud of super-heated steam. The Raptors gibbered, and with a crash, two went down, pulled into a command system freeze after having a Zabrefang practically land on them and then set them on fire.

"Rosalita! How many we got here?!"

"I can't, hang on-" She was fussing with the controls. What Raven couldn't see was that she'd deployed the guns first without using the goggles – what the youth had perceived as armour when he had first seen the Wolf zoid – and now they were stuck. With a curse, Rosalita returned the guns to their upright position, tensely watching the clock as they shifted out of view. "Raven! Hang on!"

The cloud was already fading. The heat had given him enough time to manoeuvre around, so Raven lunged forward out of it, armour crackling as he sank the zoid's fangs into the shoulder of the next Raptor to foolishly brave coming near him. It was too heavy to drag completely, but Raven still did a good job of swinging it around – it struggled, tail swinging from side to side as it tried to regain control, digging its hind-claws into the wounds on the Fang's chest as its tail _thwapped_ against the faces of its companions.

_Wait a second, this isn't Sleeper behaviour…_

With a couple of wet pops, something flew overhead and Raven stared in amazement as a decapitated RevRaptor rolled to a stop and was promptly swallowed by the sink-hole. Rosalita had finally gotten the sequence right.

"Raven! Raven!"

"I'm fine. Tell me what's going on-"

"But you're right there!"

"And in the thick of it." _God_.

"Um three are dead! There's another nine around you, and, and, some more coming in from your right!"

Raven gulped. Nine? Nine right here? What the hell? _Old man, what were you thinking? This is way too many, even for a sleeper unit._ He moved the control column forward again, the jaws finally tearing the forearm free. But the Raptor didn't go down. He stared in amazement as it fought the freeze and responded by tail-whipping him. With his damaged legs, the Fang felt the blow badly, and then had another latch onto his side. "I need some cover fire, goddamnit! Cover fire!"

"They're…they're too close, I'll hit you-"

"Then aim for the oncoming ones, idiot!"

"DON'T CALL ME AN IDIOT!" The Konig's fire was painfully slow. The shells were good though – while Rosalita pretty much missed the first few she started with the next lot. "HAH!"

"Lead your shots!"

"What?"

"Shoot where you think they'll be! One, two, not together, have a constant stream of fire-"

"I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING SHUT UP AND LET ME PILOT GODDAMNIT."

Raven decided to keep his mouth shut from here on in and went back to mauling and firing his short-range cannons. It wasn't that he'd forgotten them – he'd just jump into them if he shot them while moving forward. They didn't pivot – they had to fire where he was facing, and that meant getting a face full of claws unless he managed to knock them back first. This was bad.

Behind him Grace had caught up with Lumina-La and had managed to calm her down enough to keep moving. The Energyliger was good at taking damage – something nobody had thought of until now. Grace used herself as a shield, the fragile Orudius cowering beside her. There was nothing else she could do. Nothing except…a Gatling gun. And a horn, and spiky wings and a shield generator, but _really_!

"Lumina-La, keep your eyes on that patch of ground there…the ones by those rocks, do you see them? See how they frame a whole lot of turrets and buildings and stuff? I think that's the ruin where we're going." Grace began to turn her lumbering zoid, noticing for the first time that Harmony was staying put. She put the scruffy-haired girl out of her mind as she trained the sights on the revraptors. She didn't know how to shoot. There could be people in there. "I need you to go now, then call Harmony over, okay? But the rocks will give you some cover."

Lumina-La could only nod, hiccuping through her tears.

Grace watched Rosalita get better at firing – and actually hit them on purpose now as opposed to catching them by luck, and tried to think about what Raven had told the Konigwolf pilot. Lead the fire? Oh, shoot where they were going to be…

…The gun was _loud_. She'd had no idea it was _loaded_. Grace almost wet herself in the process as the explosions rocked the earth around her, then decided that shooting at people's feet would be much better. "Is this part of the test?" She asked through the link, squeezing the trigger gently now instead of just pressing it hard. The fire was more controlled now and was enough to distract the enemy into snarling and hissing at her as more joined the fray.

"I don't know. Maybe." Raven growled back, distracted. Even with the legs shot off from his cannon, the Raptors were still clawing forward and ripping into his hindquarters. The Fang howled.

This seemed to have an effect on Rosalita. "Prozen wants us dead!" She blurted out, frenzied in her new-found bloodlust.

"Hardly." Raven snorted.

"How'd you know?! After all, he killed-"

Raven ignored her, his eyes on his opponents and his fingers stiff from clenching the controls. "If Prozen wanted us dead, we'd be dead before we started - he doesn't waste time. I think this is something else."

~ to be continued


	12. Chapter 12

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.12**

The pilot of the Redhorn was watching all of this quite glumly. This was supposed to be her solo mission, and someone had taken all her foes. Said foes were now kicking the daylights out of some helpless Zabrefang pilot in the sinkhole field with two weird new zoids helping out – well, trying to help. Binoculars at the ready, the young woman chewed her lip anxiously and reached down to the dashboard to check the radio again, fingers rolling back and forth over the dials. Her cockpit was open, and the breeze brought forth the smell of gunpowder and core-fluid. She was close enough to watch, but not for stray shot – not here. But still, caution was important.

She sunk down, found the frequency she was looking for and dialled in. "This is Private Marley Lexan, anyone out there on the training grounds?" A pause. "I'm here for retraining as a heavy zoid pilot – any students out there who can tell me what the hell is going on?"

It took a second for them to come back. Students all over. Since when? This reserve was supposed to be deserted over the weekend!

Then a voice she recognised. Her hand hovered over the dial, jaw dropping as she tuned in. "Private? Would you mind explaining the broadcast? Aren't you on a mission here?"

"Sir, uh, everyone else is out here. I'm just here to train on sleepers. But all the sleepers seem to be preoccupied."

"Like half the cadets on base- _will you pipe down the lot of you-_" A click as he went to broad range. "All students out of the area immediately. Meet at mission point 3A for military escort by…your name, again, Private?"

"Private Marley Lexan, sir." She breathed, cheeks flushed. "Sir? What's happening?"

He clicked back to a private channel. "A rumour was started on base that there was an organoid out here." He sounded exhausted. "So we have a few entrepreneurs out here." A distant thump. "Who have disobeyed orders to remain in Orion until further notice. The mission was a breaking-in run for a bunch of new cadets, but the school was so poorly organised – or this happened so fast – the target was never placed."

Shock made her lips move without thinking. "You're leaving the target yourself?"

"I don't have much of a choice, seeing as the instructors decided to disappear for the weekend. But that's not the problem. The information about this fake organoid is out on the airwaves. The Sleepers programmed for that mission knew who they were looking for. The rest of them have automatically responded to the rumour because organoid is something they recognize to seek and protect – to destroy anyone without the proper Imperial codes."

"Oh no. You mean they're now all focused on that one mission?"

"Correct. We might even have some Guysacks in there we…ah, found…somewhere in the ruins. I can't deactivate them from the base, I need to get to the source station…" There was the sound of a scuffle and then a quiet groan. "Does anyone here listen to authority or are you all horrible little upstarts? Get back in your zoid, Martin, before I tell your father the words you just said. Private? Are you still there?"

"Yes sir. I…" She paused, still fixing the carapace down and scooting her bottom back into the driver's seat again. The Horn twisted around and began a lumbering run to the rendezvous spot.

"Easy, Private. It's alright. No formality here. Just get yourself back here now." The Minister of Defence's voice was strained. "If it were just the Sleepers then it wouldn't be much of a problem. But I need you to have two zoids up front with depth-scanners to check for mines." Lexan gasped. "The rumour got as far as the border. We have a small infestation of Republicans I just ran afoul of, and they're quite happy to take out your legs from beneath you. Go slow and go careful. I'll retrieve the kids."

Then it clicked. She knew who the Fang pilot was. Her gaze softened at the screen and she managed a salute. "Yes sir. My ETA is 30 minutes."

"Excellent. Over and out."

- To be continued


	13. Chapter 13

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.13**

Harmony was still out there, but that was her choice as far as Rosalita could see. They'd made it to the ramble of buildings on the border of a sunken archaeological dig and were almost in one piece – the EnergyLiger was pockmarked all over its left side, and the Orudius was in even worse shape – both wings shot to pieces, hindquarters crippled and a useless leg. It was holding off a command system freeze, and provided that the zoid was allowed to rest for a bit, it's own reconstructive system should kick in and seal off the worst of the damage signals. Most zoids were fine on three legs, but it was the time it took for that damaged leg to be shut down and away from the system that was the issue. They would – in time – be okay.

Rosalita knew none of this, of course. Her only concern was how two of their lot were out there. She could see Raven still fighting, although he was trying to provide a diversion more than destroy everything. He was so _brave_! Her Konig was fine and still in ship shape – although now down half of her shells, which was unfortunate – so she was the only one actually operational. The other two were being hidden as best they could in the shadowy walls of the dig. _Oh Raven, darling, hold on..._

Someone tapped on the cockpit glass, and Rosalita turned her attention away from the livefeed to where Lumina-La was now standing - on the cheek armour of the Konig and leaning in to get her attention. "What?" Realizing the girl couldn't hear her, she opened the cockpit a little and narrowed her eyes. "What's the matter?"

The Zoidian's voice was very small. "There are more zoids down here."

Her stomach shrank into a tiny knot. "_What_?"

"I saw them first. Grace is watching them now. Some of the Raptors have come into the ruins and stuff, and I think they're looking for us."

"They're not supposed to do that!"

Lumina-La's lower lip trembled. "We're killing them, and we shouldn't. They're just doing their job. W-We shouldn't be here."

If she started crying again, she'd alert everything. Rosalita quickly changed the subject. "Is Grace okay?"

"Shaken. Kinda. I want to go home." Another gulp and her voice became even smaller. "If he hadn't been there, they would have killed me."

"No they wouldn't."

There was the scuff of shoes on gravel as Grace approached, looking small and distant beneath them. "The Orudius isn't going to move again for a while. Its' head is half gone."

"Bullshit." Came the hiss of breath.

"Wanna take a look for yourself?" Grace scowled at her. "We need help."

"We can't get a signal over these walls without everyone seeing us, duh." Rosalita gripped the controls hard, swaying a little in confusion. She didn't know what to do. "Are you sure the Orudius isn't gonna move?"

Lumina-La let out a sob. Grace climbed onto the zoid's carapace and felt her way down to the head by the goggles, gently tugging Lumina-La back to solid ground. "It's okay." She breathed to the sobbing girl. "It's okay. Really it is." Her dark gaze lifted to meet Rosalita's piercing eyes. There was surprising strength in daddy's little girl. "We need to pull Harmony back in. And we have to rescue Raven, but it means we're going to have to think about this."

"Shooting them won't work." Rosalita snapped. "We're stuck-"

Lumina-La wailed then, and beneath them there was the ominous sound of rubble being shifted. There was a strange low rumble, followed by a hissing-rattling sound. Grace buried the girl's face against her jacket to muffle her sobs, help steady her. "You've got to keep your voice down. They'll find us-"

"How? They're mindless _sleepers_. All they can do is _shoot_-"

In an explosion of pale green curls and weeping eyes, Lumina-La whirled around. It was very dramatic, but the effect was lost on Grace when she got a face full of hair that whipped across her eyes. "That's right. They _shoot_. They shot us. They shot _me_. They're shooting Raven right now, and you're there saying they're just. Mindless. _Sleepers_. They may be 'mindless' but they know how to hurt us!"

The words stung like a physical slap. Rosalita took a step back, her jaw dropping. "I…"

"Shut up!" Lumina-La hissed. "My _EVE_! _Listen_ to you! You're so full of yourself. You can't even shoot straight! None of us can!" Her cheeks reddened in embarrassment. "We thought we were so great. But we're not. We have these amazing, awesome zoids, and we can't use them. We laugh at everyone around us in school, on the road, whatever, and it's not okay. _None_ of its okay."

Lip curling, the konig pilot drew herself up, fists balling. "_You_ can't pilot. I can. There's the difference."

"What? You couldn't even hit a bunch of sleepers!"

"Shut up Grace! This has nothing to do with you-" Her words faded as she noticed the expressions on the faces of her companions. The pale, wide-eyed look of absolute terror. It wasn't something Rosalita had ever experienced before – she'd been held up, held up folk herself, lost a zoid, but never quite like-

There was a huff of air behind her, and her shadow became very long and very round. Grace took a step back, Lumina-La fell to her knees. Rosalita looked over her shoulder and into the vacant, staring plexiglass 'eyes' of a fully weaponized RevRaptor.

Tilting it's head to the side, taking the three cadets in, it _roared_.

~ To be continued


	14. Chapter 14

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.14**

Lidl frowned at his monitor, rolling his thumb back and forth over the camera's zoom function, his eyes narrowed. His zoid continued to lope along, the Commandwolf acting like the animal it was styled for, it's snout to the ground and flanks quivering with electrical energy. "Boss. Boss?"

"Busy."

"Boss, look-"

"Goddamnit, Lidl-"

"Bosco's found their trail." He immediately felt silly saying the pet name for his zoid, because it wasn't actually his zoid, it was just every zoid he piloted was called Bosco. It wasn't like he had a personalized zoid, he wasn't that high up, so every time a zoid was clocked in, it's memory was wiped and it was handed, fresh and new, to the next in line. Still. It felt wrong not to give it some kind of identity, even if it were only for a little while. He waited for the snickering at least, or the insults to follow. They didn't, which struck him as odd.

"Trail, mate?" Fleming's reedy voice piped up from the next CommandWolf. She was sporting a nice set of bruises across a cheek and had eyes aflame with a fight she couldn't wait to bring out. "My one's got nothing."

"Do you know what you're looking for?" Lidl shot back. With a few clicks across the dashboard he'd copied the signal and a few images and sent them down the line. "Wind's knocked it about a bit, but I'd say we're on the trail of one Zabrefang, what looks like a Liger, a Scorpion type, a larger Wolf variant and something else that looks like its some kind of bleedin' dancer. I don't know."

He heard Ida grunt in surprise. He was probably the newest here, Lidl remembered, but he felt no desire to chide him for his ignorance. Mackey however, semi-conscious and stuffed behind Ida's chair, said something that wasn't worth repeating.

"Could be a lot of fire power."

"We can handle it. They're cadets. That means they don't know shit."

"Not necessarily. That guy we came across certainly knew plenty."

Higgins swore the air blue before becoming coherent again. "That was _not_ a cadet! He does _not_ count! We will find him when we find him! He will _not_ walk away-"

"He didn't exactly walk."

"_Fleming_." The Guysack paused for a moment, raising it's claws warningly. A traditionally level one zoid, with basic weaponry and fragile armour, the zoid was normally used for infantry support, but more often as an aide for construction purposes. Higgins however, had become quite adept at controlling the little burrower, and its mottled sandy-coloured armour was dented and scratched from fights that he'd one with cunning, ingenuity and an adoration of explosives. The military had recognized his abilities and in time he'd been awarded his personal zoid which in turn had been kitted out with all kinds of new and wonderful weaponry that made it a force to be reckoned with…as long as Higgins didn't lose his nerve and didn't decide to just run in shooting. Lidl watched him jealously, watched the bob of smaller repeater rifles latched onto the torso of the zoid, or the 20mm machine guns mounted to the claws. The arms had spectacular reach, Lidl had seen plenty of Imperial zoids brought down with a set of talons around an ankle and bullets eating away at the armour until it was brought down into a command system freeze. This wasn't even going into the little grenade launchers mounted at the base of the tail – four shots, Lidl remembered.

All he had was a stock standard Wolf towing a cart of explosives. With another Wolf, empty, running on autopilot set to follow the pack – Mackey's zoid, now unused and possibly enjoying the fact it didn't have anyone behind the proverbial wheel.

"You think you know where they are, Lidl?"

The restraints creaked against his girth, his eyebrow twitching. "Yeah." He drawled. "Tracks kinda meander a bit. Problem in the crowd I'd say. Figure there might be issues or somethin', not following orders, but in short, anyone else seein' all those dust clouds yonder?"

The pause was long and heavy.

"…Yeah." Ida said, breaking the tension, his voice quivering. Wether it was with amusement or frustration Lidl didn't know, he was annoyed and was happy to let everyone else know it.

"They'd be sleepers. And that's a Zabrefang they're tearin' the shit outta."

Something else was out there too. He got pictures of that as well, thankful that the poor Wolf could still focus. Something silver with a single black eye at its head. Without anything to use as a reference point it was impossible to tell how big the silvery-white scorpion zoid was – it was too far away from the zabrefang. Beyond them were scaffolds and crumbling buildings, neither Imperial or Republican.

He let the images drift for a little while longer, sitting there, fuming.

"So. A Zabrefang. An' a mysterious new zoid."

"Lidl, what I don't like about you is that you're a smartarse."

"Thanks, boss."

"Have at it, kids." The Guysack swung towards the mess, claws clicking in a rapid beat to carry the little zoid across the dunes. Higgins was angry that the newbies hadn't bothered to use long-range scanning. He even pondered why he'd taken out his zoid instead of checking out a Wolf – Wolves were faster, but eh…

It was coming into view, rapidly. Two of the Republican Wolves sped ahead, their cannonry units starting to stutter with machinegun fire, little puffs of sand popping up here and there as bullets missed their target. Lidl padded in their wake, careful of the explosives until he reached the maximum range for his own weaponry and laying down fire as well. "I'm gonna drop these claymores and join the fight, boss."

"…Yeah." Higgins grunted. He was already charging up his main weapon – the laser gun mounted to the end of the Guysack's tail, and was wondering if he should shoot the frenzied mass of sleeper zoids, or take out the Fang. He settled on shooting at the new zoid, wondering why it was standing still – its core was still active, so it certainly wasn't frozen. Why it wasn't moving he didn't know, but then did it matter? He smirked. A sitting target was so much easier to hit. "Let's knock 'em dead."

- To be continued


	15. Chapter 15

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.15**

By this time, Harmony was now curled up in her seat with her hands over her head and curled up tight into a little ball, rocking back and forth as her panic consumed her. A few stray shots had tagged her, but Harmony's zoid was so far untouched.

Her mysterious persona had been cast away in the attack, what lay inside that zoid was not a person in control of her destiny and aloof from the world, she was a frightened child who was discovering first hand that she knew and understood nothing. The other girls no longer mattered, and Raven was gone from her thoughts – they were all going to die. And she was going to die with them. It wasn't fair. _It just wasn't fair_.

The crashing and explosions were muffled outside, but she had to shut her eyes tight to stop what was happening in front of her from entering her mind.

Raven had dragged his zoid around a sink-hole. He'd lost a leg completely by now, and another was set to follow, his Fang labouring on its belly, it's chest cannons useless now that they were filled with sand. Two of the RevRaptors had tried to follow him around, but he'd managed to kick one of them into a sinkhole and the other had been pulled down with it when the first panicked. Now the Raptors were wary, but their programming was slowly winning over the zoid's natural desire for safety. Their jaws snapped and their cannons continued to fire, peppering the battered and smoking hulk with more shot.

The cockpit glass was cracked and splintering. Raven had managed to manoeuvre the zoid so that the head was covered, protected from most of the shots, but he was cut, bleeding and at the moment angry that he was so alone. He'd wanted to run. He could have run. But not with the stupid girl out there not doing a thing. The others had escaped to safety, and were out of firing range – why Harmony didn't join them he didn't know, and didn't care.

Raven took a few more deep breaths and fired up the machine guns again – shooting wildly at the mess of snarling monsters on the edge of the danger zone.

Harmony was aware of this, but just barely. She just wanted the monsters to go away, to leave her alone. She'd had enough. She wanted to go home.

Then she noticed something strange happening. One of the Revraptors simply crumpled, pieces of it coming off as though pulled apart by giant hands. Her heart fluttered with hope. Had Raven done that?

No. Hang on.

Three new zoids joined the fray – CommandWolves, she realized – and a Guysack! Bringing up the rear! They tore into the pack of Sleepers, ripping them to shreds. She felt a sob escape her – help! Help was here! She scrabbled at the control column of her zoid, trying to get a better view of the battle. "Raven!" She yelled happily. "Raven! Someone's come to save us!" He didn't answer. The zoid was still firing so she knew he was still alive. "Raven! Hey, answer me!"

"We are _fucked_, Harmony."

"Why?"

There was a hiss and a rattle. A moment later she heard the hushed voices of the others. "What's going on up there?"

"Where the fuck have you guys been?" Harmony exploded, her panic making her shriek.

"Ssssh! Shut up! We're holed up in the Orudius! A Revraptor totalled the Konig! We barely got away!"

"Mister Cloppy is _deaaaaad_!"

"EVERYONE SHUT THE HELL UP AND HIDE."

"Why? It's just the Republic." Rosalita sounded annoyed. "They can help us. The Republic are nice people."

"She's totally right, Raven. They're the _good guys_."

"You are wearing _Imperial uniforms_. You are on _Imperial land_. You're going to be bloody lucky to walk away from this with-" Raven was cut off, his zoid finally dropping into a freeze. Now they were no longer able to communicate, Harmony found herself alone – the other girls continued to burble over the link but she paid them no attention.

She could go back to panicking, but now the others were wondering what was going on. She watched the final RevRaptor fall, her heart pounding. She opened the cockpit. They didn't have to know she was afraid. How she'd almost wet herself. The other girls had run away into the ruins, after all. A fierce, frightened smile was now plastered across her face as she climbed out of the cockpit. "Hey! _Hey_!"

Beneath her, Raven was out of his zoid. Raven was running.

"Harmony! Get down!" Grace screamed over the radio.

"Shut up, Imperial bitch! I've got no loyalty to you!"

Raven might not make it.

"You tell 'em, Harmony!" Hah. Unexpected Rosalita would take her side. She waved again. The Guysack following the Wolves finally joined them, its guns still active.

She waved once more. And then out of the corner of her eye saw Raven rise up in front of her – how had he gotten to her so fast? – and leap across the carapace of the Deathpion, arms outstretched. She saw the muzzle fire of the Guysack, the loud crack of a shell being released, but then her world was suddenly tumbling and crashing, the blazing, sweating heat of Raven against her chest, painful as they tumbled. Sky, metal, the purple-blue of their uniforms, the gut-twisting fall off the edge and then blazing heat as the Deathpion staggered beneath the hail of fire.

They hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of Harmony as she lay stunned against the sand. She didn't have time to rest however, because Raven was yelling, raving at her, grabbing her and pulling her up and up onto her feet. She heard one last cry from the radio before her feet were moving, falling automatically into Raven's wake. She sobbed, snorting a snot bubble in the process as he darted towards the ruins.

Wait! The sand! She tried to dig in her heels but tripped, falling into the horribly creaking, whispering sand.

"Come on! We're light enough not to sink, just run! We haven't got much time!" His voice barely carried over the booming of the guns a few hundred meters away, and the rising shriek of the Deathpion.

"W-Why? W-why are they _shooting_ at u-"

The heavy whumping sound picked her up and tossed her towards the ruins like a leaf in the wind. Raven followed. The shockwave carried them out of the way of the detonating zoid core, the following shrapnel and the rolling fireball of ignited core-fluid that turned the sand to glass beneath it as it ruptured through the joints of the dead zoid. The next landing was just as rough as the first, but there was not only machine gun fire that was the issue now – it was the burning pieces of everything else that fell like rain all around them.

Raven pulled himself up, blinking through the ringing of his ears and the blurring of his vision. The world span in hundreds of colours around him, and he barely registered Harmony's spluttering cries of pain and rage. The goal was the ruins. He gripped it, held it close to his heart and lifted himself off the ground to start running again. The burning in his shoulder was ignored, but his grip on Harmony was like iron. He wouldn't let go.

Adrenaline made them both quick as their minds cleared and sound returned, but the question was, would they be quick enough? Zig-zagging over the sand Raven had ceased to care if Harmony was running or being dragged, his eyes were fixed on the ruins, and with them the safety they provided. The safety he had to reach. Her to reach as well.

They had to make it. They had to. Sand popped and exploded all around them, the fire lazy. Raven's lungs felt like they were about to burst, the inhalation of heat from the sun, the sand and the fire – he couldn't last much longer. Slowly but surely his desire for survival was slimming down to him alone, to leave Harmony to find her own sense of survival. But who was he kidding?

The ground opened up beneath their feet and he elbowed her back, coughing in the dust and sand as it slid out from beneath him. Raven gasped as he landed on his backside, and Harmony fled past him, caught in her panic again. "No, NO, YOU STUPID-" He lashed out, catching her ankle, dragging her against him as the next lot of shells fired overhead. Gripping her hand tightly, feeling the inside of his own gloves slippery with sweat, he pulled her around the opened hole in the ground, cursing the stupid idea of trying to get there on foot. They would keep shooting. Every stray shot made the ground more unstable. He was such an idiot!

Pulling, running, gasping they kept going. He could do this. He had to.

Another explosion.

Raven felt his fear rise. As suddenly as it came, he squashed it, his training kicking in and helping him to concentrate. Harmony shrieked but he ignored it, concentrating only on each step. _Think about the next step. Don't think about what's behind you. It's okay. Just run. You can do this. You're almost there_.

Across from them, Higgins was staring at the mess he'd caused, before flicking open the channels to Fleming. "You idiot! We needed that one alive!"

"We're all shooting at it! Don't pick on me 'cos I'm a girl!"

"I'm pickin' on you 'cos you got the best aim!" Fleming's Wolf ducked forward, it's head tilting to nip at the Guysack's hindlegs. Higgins scuttled away, his lips pulled into a sneer. "Alright already, stop dickin' about – Lidl, lace that place with explosives. Stupid kids brought us right to the ruins – we blow 'em sky high 'cos the organoid's bound to be hidden deep – we won't find it otherwise."

"Yeah, boss."

"Mackey, you awake yet?"

There was a moan over Ida's shoulder, and the young man leaned away to allow his superior officer to sway into full view of the zoid's commlink. "Heya."

Higgins pointed his finger at the screen, teeth bared. "Get your arse in that zoid and get into those ruins. Get those kids. Ida, go with him. Fleming, you're with me, we're going t'attack from the front."

"Yep!" A lot more enthusiasm there. The zoids split, the children now too far out to be hit clearly. Not that Higgins really wanted to hit them because people tended to make a mess when hit with bullets the size of the ones his little company were packing. He grinned, gunned the Guysack's primary motion system and started to walk towards the mess of zoids. Maybe they could salvage some of those parts…

"Boss?"

"Yeah, Lidl?" Higgins moved aside to let Fleming go first, searching for a clear way across the field as the Ida waited for Mackey to reach his zoid.

"Boss, we got a problem."

"How?" He turned the zoid to see that the CommandWolf was still there, and Mackey was getting into it, and there was Lidl…but there was a mysterious lack of explosives. "What the hell?"

- to be continued


	16. Chapter 16

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.16**

When the explosions started, they started slow.

Raven practically crawled into the safety of one of the squat buildings, dropping his head and then slumping to the cool sand. He managed to roll over, fill his lungs with precious, sweet, cool air, ignoring the hysterics behind him as Harmony well and truly lost it.

He hurt all over. His piloting gear was ruined – he could smell the singed cloth, and throughout his body he could feel every muscle screaming in pain. But he couldn't rest, not quite yet. Raven struggled to open his eyes, focus on the world around him and pull himself deeper into safety.

He heard the Fang before he saw it, the _katcha-katcha_ of the motor systems oddly soothing, even as it leaped over the building and tumbled into the ruins behind them. Harmony was saying something – something about someone coming to save them, but what that meant Raven didn't know. His breathing eased, the youth wiped the sweat-soaked hair from his eyes and tried to stand as his brain pointed out useful bits of information.

The zoid had been tugging a trailer.

Said trailer was now being tugged into position over the snapping pit of sleepers, which were still chewing up the remains of the KonigWolf. Bits of EnergyLiger were everywhere – the armour was proving hard to get through, but the delicate undercarriage had been gutted. Core fluid _everywhere_. Raven stared. He felt nothing for the zoids that lay down there – his concerns were how a pack of seemingly placid sleepers had been turned into ravenous monsters. Unless someone had tampered with them…he wasn't sure. He'd never experienced this before.

Movement to the left. He twisted around and watched the Fang leap about and cavort at the top of the dig, kicking and snarling and attracting a lot of attention. The Orudius was quickly left behind as they gathered at the wall, some trying to climb up it and a few of the more advanced sleepers making for the ramps to the upper levels. Raven watched all of this in amazement, then _understanding_ as the Fang tipped the trailer over. Ignoring Harmony's joyous cry of _Major Shubaltz!_ (_Ohhhh_, that's what she meant) he ducked behind the wall as the first _whump_ happened, dragging the hapless girl with him. He didn't get to see the chain reaction, but knew what to expect – Republican claymores were dirty things full of shrapnel. Harmony opened her mouth to say something, but Raven shook his head, sinking to his knees and covering her as best he could as their shelter began to shake and crack with each new explosion.

He stopped covering her when she started to nuzzle into him and tried to kiss his neck.

Raven rudely pushed her away, shocked. Harmony had the decency to look hurt for a moment before turning to sneer, reaching for him again. She said something but her voice was lost in the crackling behind the stout walls. When a piece of the roof was dislodged and he had to scoot aside, he only ended up almost in her lap, so when she went to kiss him again she didn't not get the 'reply' she wanted. Far from it – he sat up, grabbed her by her messy hair and pulled her close, a leather glove placed over her mouth to stop her trying to kiss him again.

"This isn't camp. Stop being an idiot." He hissed in her ear, and felt her stiffen in response, every romantic daydream she'd had in her head dying a fiery death in that awful moment of embarrassment. He pulled her hair a little tighter to show he meant business. "Wait for the explosions to stop…"

She squirmed against him, but Raven's concentration was now held entirely by the space between explosions – the claymores had gone off as they hit the ground, and if they managed to land in such a way their sensors were not triggered, when a zoid blundered into the path of said sensor they would go up. It sounded vaguely like fireworks except being right beneath them, and the whistling snaps of zoids being blown up were also weird to say the least. Several times something came across the entry-way to the little building – thank the gods they had a stone roof, the stuff smoked like hell and turned shiny. Core fluid. Raven gagged.

He was also annoyed that he could see the Republican soldiers making their way towards them, cautiously as well – so this might get…interesting.

It wasn't the first time Raven wished he was old enough for a gun permit. He was allowed to shoot one, allowed to own one, but not to bring them out on anything but official missions and _only_ with adult supervision.

_And look what this pretend game of soldiers has turned into._ He thought, glumly. When would he turn thirteen? _Ugh_! He hoped the other girls were alright – the last thing they needed were human casualties other than the injuries, although injuries would be the least of people's worries if the soldiers caught up with them. Raven felt heavy and tired, but he could summon the energy when the time came – and it would come soon.

As the last of the crackling faded, Raven reached around in the rubble to find a piece of metal bar, commonly sunk into concrete to help make it sturdier. He was struck then at how used this little place was, looking around at his temporary safe zone – the graffiti, the meager (and now useless) supplies and a few desks. A remote class-room, nestled on the of an ancient ruin. Raven hadn't realized…

Hefting the bar, enjoying it's weight, he looked down on the disgraced cadet that was hugging her knees to her chest in embarrassment, not wanting to meet his eyes.

"We have some hunting to do. If you want to come with me, swing first and ask questions later. If you want to stay here, that's fine. Just keep down and stay quiet. Just make up your mind, _now_. I…" He took a breath. "I have cadets to save."

/to be continued.


	17. Chapter 17

_The following battle is possibly confusing :x _

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.17**

The Zabrefang had moved back and had lain flat on its belly as the noise in the pit increased, the pilot resorting to using radar only to ping out the enemies and avoid the flying shrapnel. There was no point turning on the infra-red or heat signatures, out here it was by far too hot to pick out anything, but through the twisting clouds of smoke and still burning ashes, he could make out the horse zoid that was now propped up against a wall. Its head facing away from the danger and shielded by most of the armour it had left, so hopefully the cadets were still inside and alive. The Fang wasn't registering a core signature, which meant the horse zoid was either deactivated or dead – and judging by the state of it, either way could be true…but said nothing for it's possible 'pilots'…

The pilot focused his attention on the oncoming zoids. There were buildings in the way, but he pulled up the menus for the machine guns and heard the groan of the carapace as they were unlocked and released. He pulsed the shots carefully, nudging the gun as lightly as possible to get the shots where the zoids might be rather than where they were – the results weren't very good over the range, but one command wolf did buckle as a leg was shot out from beneath it. Ha, ha.

It had been a lucky shot. The pilot paused every now and then, the cross-hairs over a cockpit, but jerked the mechanism aside just a little to nick shoulders or gun assemblies. There was a time and place for assassinations, and he preferred a more hands on approach than death by metal slug.

When the group moved out of the way to avoid the worst of the sink hole field, the pilot twitched his zoid back from the edge, head slowly moving from side to side to allow the radar an appropriate picture. There were glimpses of them between the buildings, but not enough for him to make an accurate shot. His only chance was to jump from the frying pan, into the fire. An actual fire come to think of it – the ruins were now truly…ugh…_ruined_, and while he knew that most of it had been mapped out, and that the old paintings had been copied or lifted from their holdings, and certain parts were covered in chalk insults or old bottles, it was still a shame. It held fond memories.

Like a dog, the Fang raised its hindquarters up quickly, tilting the torso up enough to allow all four paws to take the weight of the zoid instead of the undercarriage. Increasing the torque slowly, the pilot revved the motor units, the Fang starting to sway with each revolution. The AI – uncomplicated and awfully cheerful – seemed to like this idea and was supplying the view screens in the cockpit with all kinds of interesting visual data. Most of it was useless (one or two untranslated, and he cursed himself for not equipping this zoid with a capture program to pick it up – the linguists would go mad with joy even if it was an error message) but he kept an eye on it anyway in case something actually important came up.

Well, he tried to. The Guysack had a longer range than he realized, but thankfully years of experience kicked in and the Fang responded to his light touch with a sideways leap as the shell hit, using the momentum of the swaying to push it further. The Fang turned mid leap, bringing it's forepaws up to its chest and allowing it's hind legs to hit the dirt first on the nearest none-inferno patch of ground, pivoting on the ankle that hit first to change direction. Then the paws came down, talons out, digging into the battered earth. The Fang didn't roar, or howl, but it did gibber excitedly as the pilot drove it into the pit, stretching the zoid out as best he could to reach the first of the low slung buildings that crossed the area sporadically.

The pit had plenty of them, a sunken town with high sides and buildings that rose above it with walls that had long since fallen away to show the bare bones of masonry to the world that could easily survive a bunch of dying zoids and their accompanying explosions. Now the Fang used these pieces to cross the pit of molten slag and rapidly cooling zoid core, the motions quick and sure even if the person making them wasn't – one foot wrong and there would be trouble, so they had to go on, regardless of what happened next, they had to reach the other side. Momentum, yes, that was the key. Speed. He had to get to the other side.

With a rumble the first of the enemy rolled up, two working command wolves, with a third limping in, heads moving back and forth in an effort to find him. They had been scanning the horizon, blind in the heat-haze so they did not see the scarlet paw reach up until it was too late. The closest to the edge screamed horribly as the talons slashed out, catching the zoid by the cabling on its neck. Tendons of steel and cable bunched as the Zabrefang dug its talons deeper into the rock beneath them, one free forepaw and it's teeth working to sever the head from the neck while the hind legs and other forepaw tightened their grip on the stone.

Over the radio the Fang's pilot could hear his opponents, currently in a fierce debate over whether or not to shoot his cockpit. That would never do – you didn't argue about things like this, you _shot_. Frowning he put them back in his sights again, smirking as the guns swivelled into range and he fired. The bullets ate away armour quickly as the machine guns completed their small arc, crippling the chest and leg areas as they swept back and forth. Within the Fang's jaws the other Wolf moaned in terror, slipping slowly over the side.

_Damn. They're lighter than I remember. Suppose they're skimping on parts. _

Freeing the paw as the Wolf tried to toss him off again, the pilot coaxed the Fang to do one last awful bite, ripping off the Zoid Central Control panel. The ZCC popped and crackled in his jaw, and the Wolf choked out one last awful cry before it slipped into a freeze and toppled over him.

Just as the other two finally realized to fire.

The pilot released the torque in the Fang's hind legs, springing up in that heart-stopping moment, using the fallen Wolf as his shield. As one of the backed up, he had a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach – were any of them equipped with the Ragnarok Fang manoeuvre, and did they have enough balls to use it? – so he shot forward, headbutted one off the cliff, then swiped the other with a horrible left hook to bring it to it's proverbial knees. His armour continued to pockmark with the remaining machine gun fire, but it was nothing serious, not until they aimed at his cockpit. He ducked the Fang's head in frustration, but still felt a shudder of fear as the displays trembled beneath the onslaught.

Command Wolves were strong, but they were not made to handle the weight of the much heavier Zabrefangs. Something crunched beneath him, and casually the pilot's Fang leaned over and chewed off the whirring machine guns.

The Guysack sent him a comm invite. Naturally, he accepted.

"Who the fuck are you and why the fuck are you here?" His face wasn't recognizable, and the lack of pips on his uniform showed him as small fry. This was either his whole platoon or a group of idiots. "Hey! Answer me!"

He shot at the ground beneath the Guysack's feet. "Same reason you are. Different outcome."

"We call dibs!"

"Dibs don't mean a thing here." The Fang swayed again as it brought another paw forward, gently sliding it over the Wolf's head. "I got a man in here, or a woman, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't worry me if another Republican soldier bites the dust on Imperial grounds."

"That's _murder_." The guy looked almost smug. There was a Republican soldier who had a smirk like that, what was his name? Hal-something-or-other. Greasy git. _Halford_!* That was it!

"We're not playing marbles here, soldier. War tends to have a lot of murder. You have two zoids down below me and-" Wait, weren't there four?

The explosions caught him off guard, but the pilot shimmied the Fang aside, shoulder barging the hapless CommandWolf up and around, tangoing almost as he identified the other Wolf. He'd have to risk it. Slamming the throttle into the Charge! Position, he dived forward and met the Wolf head on – this time the glass cracked under the onslaught of bullets, and he flung up an arm to shield his face as shards peppered his clothing.

Biting back a snarl as the Guysack started firing, the Fang dove forward and unloaded a torso missile at the Wolf in front of him before pouncing on it himself – It went down in a flurry of whining and screams thanks to the distraction of a missile to the chest. He continued forward, rolled the Fang over his opponent, crushing the top weapons and breaking the leg joints as the Wolf he'd been on only moments before went up in a similar ball of fire.

The Fang was lagging. The warnings were getting worse. His gaze darted down to the control panel showing the damage to the zoid and an estimated time to freeze. He needed to end this now. Remove the danger. _Go_.

Picking up speed he ran towards the Guysack, strafing from side to side on approach, trying not to be predictable as the Fang's front armour was slowly worn away. It took a moment to line up his last two missiles but one scored a direct hit, taking out the Guysack's back section. It scuttled backwards as he reached it, tail quivering as it shot. One of the forelegs finally crashed, but before the Fang could crash he cut the synapse connections and quickly disconnected the leg – as he shot past. The Guysack was not expecting the enemy to use it's own body as a weapon but with a squeak it was trapped beneath the toppling leg, and a moment later the tail winked out of Higgin's readouts as the Fang bit it off.

"Bollocks!"

"…I was going to say you had two of your lot down in the pit, but I think I'm going to let you just dwell on that and get on with your life." The pilot grumbled. His Fang, limping horribly, walked to the edge. The top wasn't popped off, but the onboard cameras did their best to focus on anything moving until the pilot spotted a dark object moving along the edge – dark hair and dark uniform – and relaxed. With the horse zoid much closer he could see that people were now emerging from it. Excellent. People were alive. Slumping back into his chair, the pilot scowled furiously at the controls and radioed the closest scout frequency…

"Hey. Hey! My people are hurt!"

"I know."

"You-"

"I'm radioing a _dispatch_. You think I'm going to let you walk on this? I've destroyed bases for far less aggravation, you whiny little sod." He quickly jammed the link to mute as Higgins did what he did best, complete with lewd gestures and plenty of spittle, leaving the Zabre pilot rubbing his forehead and grumbling to himself. "It's like he _wants_ them to die."

- _To be continued_

*Yes, _that_ Halford. The one that got Dan Flyheight killed :/ The self-proclaimed expert on Breakers, because he'd seen it, like, twice. I _hate _that guy.


	18. Chapter 18

**Some Experience Necessary**

**1.18**

It was late, late afternoon when the dispatch finally finished the round trip back to Orion base with trailers full of zoids, zoid parts, and raving prisoners. The Gustavs had their work cut out for them, and the little medical team had done the best they could to patch up limbs and faces of the prisoners and pilots alike under the watchful eye of a healthy platoon of rather annoyed, supposedly on leave soldiers. It was the weekend. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Raven had spent most of his time in the cockpit of one of the Gustavs, staring out the window and trying not to blush at the noise in the backseat from four girls who were all frightened, excited, full of praise and full of hate. Writing their report was going to be awful. Also, how was he going to explain how a bunch of sleepers just went mad and tried to kill them? That was a lot of zoids, sure most of them were slated for eventual destruction and re-smelting of parts, but whoever that mystery pilot was, they'd done more damage than Raven could have _dreamed_ of.

_Whoever you are, I'm going to find you and find out your secret. Nobody does more damage than me. __**Ever**__! _

The Gustav continued to bump along the tarmac. There were technicians everywhere, driving little trucks around or piloting the Iguans equipped for taking things apart – they had their work cut out for them thanks to the fireball back at the ruins. Haha. They were totalled now. Raven snorted and slid down into the passenger seat, lips set in a firm pout.

The Gustavs finally began to peel off, the Iguans moving between them to steady the trailers and begin unloading. It was boring to wait in the one that would take the longest, wheedling it's way down to the hanger where this mess started except missing quite a few zoids and gaining a few scars. He let his head rest against the plexiglass and tried to think of ways to put off the report. Maybe he could fake an injury to his hand or something. Or whatever. He _was_ actually hurt after all.

His thought brought the hot itch back. Raven knew he'd be fine in the long run, but the heat damage and imperial uniform did not a clean wound make.

And suddenly they were in shade, silencing his grumpy thoughts as they drove down the long row of stationary zoids and were stopping, the cockpit glass opening with a hiss and letting in the hot air, making him feel worse. Even a little ill. The awful sandwiches the dispatch crew had bought for him and his 'cadets' still sat in his stomach, rebelling now and then with an awful promise of seeing daylight again before their due time.

Achingly slow he climbed out, scowling at everything.

"Raven?"

He turned, blinked. Grace. "Yeah?"

"Uh…" The others were piling out behind her. She saluted him, her face tightening, still pale. He stopped scowling quite so hard. "Are we dismissed?"

"Best check in with the medics here on base for a full do-over." Raven's skin felt tight. "I'll meet you outside once they've seen to you and given you a change of clothes."

"Yes, sir!"

"Creep." Raven turned away as Rosalita elbowed Grace out of the way. "Raven, do you need any help with-"

"I'm fine."

Bloody Harmony. He felt his eye start to twitch, as she gazed at him with an expression of wistfulness. "I could hold you hand in the medical bay."

"I'll be fine. Just…just wait for me, okay? At the shuttle to the school?"

Their faces fell. Well, three of them did. Lumina-La just smiled at him and waved. "See you soon!"

"Right."

The medical bay was frighteningly quick. It was situated at the back of the main hanger, a sprawling offshoot that dealt with a lot of field injuries and anything that happened within the machinery bays themselves. It wasn't even that big, but somehow Raven still felt lost in it all as he was guided to a gurney and told to wait for a doctor. It was a quick diagnosis and also involved a pen poking at pieces of him as his uniform was peeled away. Not the worst of injuries that he'd suffered, but probably one of the more uncomfortable, Raven felt.

He was stripped, showered, gelled down with aloe and given a lighter version of the usual uniform so that the fabric wouldn't irritate his singed skin along with the customary scolding from a nurse who had seen this a million times before. He wasn't to scratch, Raven was told, he was to let the skin heal. It was a first degree burn, his uniform had absorbed most of it and he'd had the good sense to run for cover, but still – he needed to let it heal and heaven help him if he came back with scabby blisters and she had to help him again. Raven agreed with this completely, but when he was told that Prozen was waiting for him in the offices, his shoulders itched horribly. The dismissal was quick, complete with medical note in his pocket, and a cut-and-paste letter to 'the parent' that would be hopelessly chiding and embarrassing. Head down and shoulders hunched, Raven slouched away.

The little office wasn't anything to talk about – a few doors down from the medical bay. It was a depressing, file-cabinet filled affair with a ratty desk and a lingering odour of stale coffee and even staler cheese and onion bagels. For the second time his stomach protested at the smell and the heat that lingered despite the night's fast approach.

Prozen was leaning against the desk – no, sitting on it, actually – in jeans and a long shirt, wrongly casual outside the home. He had a file in his hand and was reading it thoughtfully, moving a little when the pages threatened to slip out in a practised sort of way. Raven waited by the doorway, watching his adopted father scan a page before handing it to the man leaning on the other side of the desk, the chair against the back wall. The albino's fingers flicked over the paper, highlighting something, Raven guessed, and the little man with the bold moustache nodded and peered closer as Prozen spoke.

"…It's not my place to tell you what to order since you're the one doing the work and I don't know a hammerspring from a frundulant coil, but I'm dubious as to the quality of those parts."

"Price was the concern; construction zoids don't get as big a budget as the ones for war."

"I see there's been a communication error again – on Monday I'll do a ringaround and see who's been fiddling with the accounts again – did you do a background check on the seller?" The tone was tired. Moustache-man bristled that magnificent nest of hair beneath his nose as he thought about it.

"Clean history, but young. I'll try to pick up a sample and dig a little deeper to see if the business is as recent as it says it is."

"Thank you. I'm sure the last thing you need is an overhaul interrupted by the arms popping off of the repair zoids." He closed his eyes tiredly, reaching up to massage the bridge of his nose as he seemed to come back into focus again. "Hi Raven."

The youth jumped, not realizing that either of them knew he was there. Now looking at Prozen, Raven was slightly disturbed, because his foster parent was sporting quite the black eye and grazing down the left side of his face. Come to think of it the shirt was hiding bruising as well. A lot of it. And suddenly, Raven was very suspicious. Suspicious enough to ignore the voices behind him as the girls finally found him.

"What happened to you?" He growled.

Prozen smiled at the other man. "Juan, may I have your office for just a few minutes? I'll try to see to the rest of the concerns, it's just I fear I might be in for a lashing."

Juan nodded with a faint smile of his own and was out the door quicker than Raven thought for a man his size. How he got through the girls Raven didn't know or didn't care – they took one look at who was in the room and pretty much bolted.

"Did you want to ask me that again?" Prozen said, dryly.

Ugh. Stupid protocol. He was too tired for this. Raven saluted him. "You look unwell, sir."

"While you were gone I had intended to take on some of the peace and quiet and do some redecorating." Prozen wrinkled his nose with displeasure. "A bookcase fell on me." Raven narrowed his eyes, expecting him to look away and be decent about his big fat lie, but the pale man held the youth in his gaze. Raven backed down. "Who was behind you?"

"The cadets. They don't like you." It was an understatement, but squashing people for personal opinions was not in his job description. He slid further into the office and quietly shut the door, the smell a smaller concern than the noiselessness provided by a soundproofed walls. Against the window Grace was staring, with Rosalita occasionally pulling a face and Harmony scowling furiously. Prozen leaned to the side to look at them over Raven's shoulder, and they all pulled back. Again, only Lumina-La remained, but she was too busy reading the paperwork on the door.

"My job is not there for winning popularity contests." Prozen grumbled, genuinely perplexed. "How did they go?"

"Terrible! I don't want to do that ever again!"

"Is that your official report?"

Damn him! "No, sir. All of them were pretty helpless but one attempted to do the right thing and…" His voice trailed off, noticing that Prozen's attention was now taken up by something behind him. He turned and went white as Harmony pulled away the piece of paper with something very derogatory written on it. "Oh god." He moaned.

Prozen blinked. "Did that say what I think it said?"

"She's from out of town. She has…_views_."

"I don't do that to children. What do I look like, the head of the science department?" Prozen dropped the file onto the desk, angry. "This is going to be the _Imperial_ _Daily_ all over again. Just because I yell at one technician for not filling in safety reports on the new Redlers, I'm apparently a murderous, innocent-beating tyrant."

"They have the tyrant part right."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I beat people!" Prozen snapped then stopped, ashamed. "I…I'm sorry. I'm not angry at you; it's just been a trying couple of hours."

Raven shrugged. "I know you're not angry with me. If you were you'd be more restrained and quiet and do that funny eye twitch thing you do when someone really drives you up the wall. The girls, uh, I don't know how to say this, they're out there and not in here 'cos they kinda thought you'd beat me and rape them or something."

Prozen's face was comical. "_What_?" A pause. "At the same _time_? How the hell does that work?"

"People outside the military have some strange ideas about you, actually. There's this one story I heard where you like bloodplay, but I have no idea what that means…" Raven trailed off, mesmerised by the horror he'd caused.

Prozen's face had gone a brilliant red, and a hand was to his mouth. "And I hope you never do! Ye gods, does being a public figure mean anything to people these days? I can't even get a take out pizza without the tabloids reporting it the next day about how I'm 'letting myself and the country go'."

"Did a bookcase _really_ fall on you?"

Crimson eyes narrowed, almost caught out. "_Yes_."

"Oh. Because-"

The door came open suddenly, almost knocking Raven into the wall and saving Prozen from yet more questioning, but this was because he'd ducked back just in time before he got a mop-end to the face. Rosalita gave him the evil eye, jabbing the mop this way and that. "Don't lay a hand on him you freak!"

"C'mon Raven, I know somewhere safe-" Harmony had a grip like iron.

"Ow! Leggo!"

There was a thump as one particularly nasty jab from Rosalita and her mop needed to be avoided to the point of going over the desk, which was obviously misjudged and the last thing Raven saw was his foster father tipping over backwards and his legs flailing in the air.

"Yay! The tyrant's dead! What's a tyrant?"

"Shut up Lumina-La."

Kicking and yelling, Raven was dragged out backwards and there was a lot of confusion and people staring as people continued to tussle and Lumina-La had the foresight to jam a chair under the handle of the office. Raven squirmed in their collective grip before finally managing to get free of his shirt, the gel having not sunken in properly yet. His shirt came free quickly enough for him to fall onto his bottom rather heavily, and for a moment he sat there stunned as Harmony, Lumina-La and Rosalita fought over the shirt. Grace just sort of stood there, horrified, before she half-heartedly pushed the chair away and Prozen was released, scowling and holding a bloody nose.

It was not, however, Prozen who stopped the fight. There was another high ranking official on base that day, and Major Karl Licten Shubaltz was not pleased when three squabbling youngsters crossed his path and fell almost onto his boots. He stepped aside and glared at them as his second in command, Marcus, raised an eyebrow in dismay.

"Ladies. May I remind you were you are and the appropriate behaviour that is required?"

Silence settled as three pairs of big eyes stared up at him. Hero worship was transferred almost instantly with Raven written off as 'too much of a boy' and 'so rude' as well as 'immature, he needs a mother'.

"H-hi." Harmony stammered.

Rosalita managed to pull off a sloppy salute while Lumina-La blushed furiously before hiding her face. Mistaking this motion for shame, Karl extended a hand – but his face stopped being kind when Harmony grasped it with a sickly, predatory grin. A thousand words were on her tongue, they all seemed very poetic and cool, but the cold green fire that met her gaze sunk them all before they got anywhere near her lips. Especially when the hand was…not snatched away, but firmly taken away.

The far less cool Marcus had Lumina-La on her feet and was then a little annoyed when Rosalita firmly ignored his hand and kept trying to get Karl's attention.

Glancing up at Prozen with a frown, Karl saluted. It was a grand, important salute, and Marcus followed his example. Both were waved down. "At ease, gentlemen."

"Are these your charges, sir?" Marcus asked.

"Only the shirtless one." Prozen pulled the shirt from relaxed fingers, and dropped it on Raven's head. He pulled it on, quickly. "Thank you for coming."

"I apologise for the incident…we hadn't expected the Republicans to come so far over the border. Intelligence got to us too late." Karl bowed his head, hand touching the brim of his cap in respect. Raven could tell it was reserved respect, Karl's old school values didn't mesh well with Prozen's new-age working equal military. That or he wasn't blue-blooded enough. Raven couldn't help but frown. "If I may inquire, how many zoids were destroyed?"

"Too many." Prozen sighed. "But what was captured will replace them once we build some new AIs. Ones that preferably don't deviate from the mission at hand. Cadets too." A pause. A sly pause. "You did well with training many of the recovery recruits, Major Shubaltz."

Shubaltz was taken aback for a moment, surprised at the praise. "Well…" He coughed politely. "Only some of them." His gaze took in the girls, who were trying to side with him and giving Prozen filthy looks again. "Are you sure they're not yours, sir?"

"The emperor's request, I'm afraid." Prozen gave him a frail smile. "I'll have a look at the reports once they're done and I'll see if anyone makes it to your garrison…but I promise I will give you plenty of warning."

"You're too…kind, sir." Ooh. That must have hurt to say.

Prozen's smile brightened and he nodded at Karl, then Marcus. "Thank you again, gentlemen."

The two walked away, flanked quickly by a few soldiers who were preparing to take the Republican soldiers away for questioning. Raven only just caught Marcus exclaiming "Cor! Look at the damage to that Fang, it's missing a leg-"

"Please keep up, Marcus…"

Raven stared up at Prozen, eyes narrowed. The albino didn't notice him however, he was staring exasperatedly at the girls in front of him before giving in to the inevitable. "Ladies, the customary action after coming in from a mission is to report to your sending officer, who I believe was a Mr…Flick, I believe?"

"Uh yeah?"

"Yes, sir." Dirty looks went from Prozen to Grace. She looked unkempt and grubby with the dirt smeared on her cheeks and the distant odour of charcoal. Her makeup was long gone from rubbing and dust and sweat, except for some bits of mascara that had tracked down her cheeks a far cry from the girl only twenty four hours before.

"Why?" Came the annoyed splutter behind her.

"Because it's protocol." Grace turned her head a fraction to gaze at Harmony. The sneer she got was dismal. "We have to follow the rules and report what we saw and what we did so they can mark us on it and see if it's okay."

"But we did great, right?" Rosalita snapped. "Then we don't need to do it. When do we get our replacement zoids and our organoids?"

Prozen sighed. Fucking _organoids_. Damn things should never have existed. "Your _old_ zoids will be on their way to you in about six months when we find all the pieces and have time to put them back together. As for your other question, no, you do not get an organoid. There are no organoids to give out. The mission was to locate an item hidden in the ruins while trying to escape the sleepers. To work as a team, instead of a singleton." He cast a meaningful glare at Raven, but it was lost on the youth. "It was a pretend organoid, which everyone unfortunately thought was real."

Harmony balled her fists, quivering with rage. "You _tricked_ us, you filthy pervert!"

Prozen bit his lip to stop the equally nasty retort. "If by trick you mean 'give you a story to play along with to help you with your mission' then yes. But you're going to have to do a lot to get a real one, the line's a mile long and most of the bloody things we find are dead. Anyone else with a question or an observation? That isn't about me?"

Two sets of hands went down. A pale hand went up. "Um, sir?"

"Yes…" Prozen looked to Raven as the youth mouthed the name to him. "Lumina-La, was it?"

She nodded, curls bobbing, her tone pleasant and very matter of fact. "Pay no attention to Harmony. We were _crap_, sir. Please don't punish us."

"You'll be fine, it was only your first mission." It was very hard to keep a straight face, Prozen felt, looking at all of this. "You're dismissed, ladies. Have a lovely evening."

And that was that. Except as they left for the shuttle, Raven could still hear their whining voices carrying back on the wind.

"That couldn't have been Minister Prozen, where was his spiked codpiece?"

"Bollocks to _that_, has to be his stand in."

Raven sank down with his face in his hands. He stayed that way even when a hand was at his head, giving his hair a well-deserved ruffle. Nobody noticed this little moment of caring in the chaos of the base, technicians didn't care about the man and the boy who stood amongst it all and out of the way. "It was awful. Really awful. I never want to do that again."

"And you wonder why I'm grumpy all the time."

Lilac eyes peered up, brow furrowed and annoyed. "Next time a bookcase drops on you, let it _stay_ there."

"You are ungrateful and I have _no_ idea why I adopted you. I must have been drunk." Came the good natured reply.

"Ffff." Stupid adults got all the fun.

- **And it has ended**.

_I write too many weak endings. _

_The girls will be fine and will probably show up on dA soon. Some of them might even return in something else I have planned, a little older, a little wiser. Thanks for reading! _


End file.
